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REMEMBRANCES 

OF 

EMERSON 


BY 


JOHN     ALBEE 

Author  of   "  Prose  Idyls,"    etc.,   etc. 


New  York 

ROBERT   GRIER   COOKE 
1901 


COPYRIGHT,  1901 

BY 
JOHN  ALBEE 


Ii3\ 


TO 

EDWARD  WALDO  EMERSON 


7219188 


Introduction 

I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  E.  W.  Emerson  for 
assistance  in  preparation  of  this  book  and  for 
various  illustrative  note  and  comment.  Without 
his  approval  and  wish  that  it  should  be  published 
I  should  not  have  ventured  into  print,  and  it  is 
therefore  fitting  it  should  be  dedicated  to  him. 

It- is  not  a  new  valuation  of  Emerson  but  a 
narrative  of  his  influence  and  its  effects  upon 
the  thoughtful  young  men  of  his  time. 
Neither  does  it  concern  itself  much  with  per- 
sonal recollections  of  Emerson,  save  one  excep- 
tion which  may  be  pardoned  to  the  adventurous 
spirit  of  youth. 

I  call  to  remembrance  simply  the  known  an- 
nals of  his  life  and  work  in  their  relation  to  my 
own  generation. 

I  make  no  claim  to  long  or  intimate  personal 
acquaintance  with  Emerson.  My  elders  and 
vii 


distinguished  contemporaries  were  more  fortu- 
nate than  myself  in  this  respect ;  but  nothing 
could  prevent  my  sharing  with  them  his  lec- 
tures, his  essays  and  poems  and  the  general 
intellectual  movement  which  acknowledged  him 
as  its  leader.  By  a  sort  of  instinct,  or  whatever 
it  may  be  called,  I  did  not  fail  to  become  pos- 
sessed with  the  whole  spirit  and  productions  of 
that  movement,  and  never  supposed  that  be- 
cause I  did  not  often  share  in  his  hospitalities  I 
was  any  the  less  qualified  to  understand  his 
pages  or  to  consult  his  oracles  in  the  difficult 
passages  of  life. 

I  have  spent  most  of  my  life  at  lanes'  ends 
and  country  cross-roads  where  my  opportunities 
for  frequent  association  with  those  to  whom  my 
sympathies  were  drawn  were  much  restricted. 
Yet  there  was  an  impalpable  bond  between  us 
and  an  intelligence  and  communion  conveyed 
by  no  tangible  instruments,  like  the  new  teleg- 
raphy which  sends  a  message  by  the  invisible 
wires  of  space. 

Thus  one  comes  to  the  belief  that  it  is  indiffer- 
viii 


ent  where  he  dwells  or  what  his  fortune ;  if  he 
have  any  center  in  himself  there  is  for  him  also 
a  circumference  with  unnumbered  radiating 
lines  from  one  to  the  other,  on  whose  paths  all 
that  toward  which  his  nature  most  inclines  may 
freely  and  prosperously  pass. 

It  has  seemed  to  me  therefore  that  with  no 
personal  assumption  I  might  call  what  I  have 
written  Remembrances  of  Emerson. 


Contents 

A  Day  with  Emerson         ....  i 

Emerson's  Influence  on  the  Young  Men  of 

his  Time    .         .         .         .         .         .  39^ 

Emerson  as  Essayist          .         .         .         .  95 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 


A  DAY  WITH  EMERSON 

It  is  natural  to  wish  for  personal  communica- 
tion with  great  men.  We  are  drawn  to  them 
as  to  a  finer  climate.  Young  men  seek  them 
with  an  instinctive  hope  of  receiving  a  direct 
gift  which  will  brighten  themselves  with  some 
beam  of  greatness ;  older  men  divine  that  only 
so  much  as  they  take  with  them  will  they  carry 
away.  The  confidence  of  youth  is  nobler  if  more 
inexperienced.  In  going  to  celebrated  persons 
results  of  a  singular  sort  are  disclosed ;  among 
them  disappointment  and  mortification.  Youth 
recognises  enough  of  greatness  to  discover  its 
own  littleness.  It  finds  that  it  cannot  come  very 
near  the  great  man  because  as  yet  it  has  no  orbit 
of  its  own.  At  a  distance  all  is  compensated  by 
the  imagination.  At  a  distance  we  figure  a 
magnificence  in  the  presence  and  affairs  of  gen- 
ius. What  chagrin  to  find  that  possibly  it  has 
3 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

dirty  hands  and  big  feet,  eats  with  a  knife,  with 
many  uncomfortable  manners  to  balk  the  predis- 
posed admirer.  When  its  genius  is  predominant 
it  retires  to  its  adytum,  whither  we  cannot  fol- 
low ;  we  cannot  surprise  it  in  the  act  of  being  a 
genius ;  we  remain  on  the  outside  with  its  follies, 
or  flattering  equalities.  We  feel  a  shadow  of 
regret  to  see  the  man  whose  pages  suggest  only 
the  fairest  ideals  living  subject  to  most  of  the 
vulgar  conditions  which  torment  mankind.  Pru- 
dence hints  that  it  would  be  wise  to  keep  away. 
But  we  cannot ;  we  must  embrace ;  we  must  have 
speech  with  the  being  so  like,  so  unlike,  what 
we  are.  If  we  cannot  approach  the  god  on  his 
mountain,  we  will  catch  him  tending  his  sheep 
or  frolicking  on  all-fours  with  his  children. 

There  was  more  congruity  in  the  presence  and 
conversation  of  Emerson  with  the  ideal  one  nat- 
urally formed  of  him  than  we  usually  find  in 
our  personal  intercourse  with  famous  writers. 
I  think  this  is  partly  the  cause  of  the  powerful 
4 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

impression  tie  made  upon  his  contemporaries. 
His  manner  of  life,  the  man  himself,  was  at  one 
with  his  thought;  his  thought  at  one  with  its 
expression.  There  were  no  paradoxes,  none  of 
the  supposed  eccentricities  of  genius,  to  furnish 
the  intolerable  ana  for  future  literary  scavengers. 
He  spoke  of  Nature  not  to  add  an  elegant  orna- 
ment to  his  pages;  he  lived  near  to  her.  In 
meeting  him  the  disappointments  if  any  there 
were,  one  found  in  himself.  ^For  he  measured 
men  so  that  they  became  aware  of  their  own 
stature,  not  oppressively,  but  by  a  flashing,  in- 
ward self-illumination,  because  he  placed  some- 
thing to  their  credit  that  could  not  stand  the  test 
of  their  own  audit. 

The  little  contribution  I  wish  to  make  to  the 
Emerson  memorabilia  concerns  a  time  so  remote 
that  I  may  be  pardoned  its  personalities.  It 
concerns  a  time  which  now  seems  like  a  dream ; 
and  yet  it  was  the  time  when  a  cherished  dream 
of  youth  was  fulfilled.  It  concerns  a  boy  who 
5 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

had  never  heard  of  Emerson  until  he  read  "  Rep- 
resentative Men"  ;  who  could  find  none  to  tell 
him  whether  the  book  was  by  a  living  or  dead 
writer,  whether  by  an  American  or  Englishman ; 
and  in  vain  did  he  seek  for  some  one  who  had 
read  it  and  could  sympathise  with  his  own  feel- 
ing in  regard  to  it.  Fortunately;  for  if  that 
little  Puritan  community  to  which  the  boy  be- 
longed had  known  Emerson  he  would  have  been 
anathema,  and  the  boy's  troubles  would  have 
begun  prematurely.  Communities  and  churches 
now  claim  the  dead  sage ;  formerly  they  would 
not  tolerate  even  those  who  read  him  in  silence. 
How  much  we  are  changed  before  we  change. 
How  often  we  forget,  forgive  and  at  last  praise 
what  we  once  condemned.  It  became  the  fash- 
ion to  listen  to  Emerson's  lectures  and  to  ask 
what  they  meant ;  or  to  refer  to  some  one  who 
professed  to  understand  them.  The  enchantment 
of  his  voice  and  presence  moved  nearly  all  audi- 
tors to  a  state  of  exaltation  like  fine  music,  and 
6 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

like  the  effects  of  music  it  was  a  mood  hard  to 
retain.  It  needed  a  frequent  repetition,  and 
those  who  heard  him  oftenest,  at  length  became 
imbued  with  the  spirit  of  his  teachings  and  could 
appropriate  as  much  as  belonged  to  them ;  and 
some  who  doubtless  carried  away  but  little  were 
self-pleased  and  thought  they  saw  a  new  light. 
A  small  farmer  of  Concord  told  me  proudly  that 
he  had  heard  every  one  of  Emerson's  lectures  de- 
livered in  that  town;  and  after  a  moment's  hesi- 
tation he  added,  "  And  I  understood  'em,  too." 
I  remember  a  day  when  I  stood  idly  over  a 
counter  looking  at  the  backs  of  what  seemed  to 
be  newly  published  books.  I  drew  out  one, 
bound  in  plain,  black  muslin.  Its  title,  Rep- 
resentative Men,  attracted  me,  because  I  had 
just  been  reading  Plutarch's  Lives,  and  for  the 
first  time  had  been  aroused  by  the  reading  of  any 
book.  Those  Greek  and  Roman  men  moved  my 
horizon  some  distance  from  its  customary  place. 
The  titles  of  the  books  were  at  least  cousins, 
7 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

and  I  wondered  if  there  had  been  any  repre- 
sentative men  since  Epaminondas  and  Scipio. 
I  opened  the  volume  at  the  beginning,  Uses 
of  Great  Men,  and  read  a  few  pages,  becoming 
more  and  more  agitated,  until  I  could  read  no 
more  there.  It  was  as  if  I  had  looked  in  a  mir- 
ror for  the  first  time.  I  turned  around,  fearful 
lest  some  one  had  observed  what  had  happened 
to  me ;  for  a  complete  revelation  was  opened  in 
those  few  pages,  and  I  was  no  longer  the  same 
being  that  had  entered  the  shop.  These  were  the 
words  for  which  I  had  been  hungering  and  wait- 
ing. This  was  the  education  I  wanted  —  the  mes- 
sage that  made  education  possible  and  study  profit- 
able, a  foundation  and  not  a  perpetual  scaffolding. 
These  pages  opened  for  me  a  path,  and  opened 
it  through  solid  walls  of  ignorance  and  the  limit- 
ing environment  of  a  small  country  academy. 

All  that  is  now  far,  far  away,  and  seems,  in- 
deed, an  alien  history;  yet  however  much  one 
may  have  wandered  among  famous  books,  it 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

would  be  ungrateful  not  to  remember  the  one 
book  which  was  the  talisman  to  all  its  fellows. 
The  first  work  we  read  with  an  ardent  mental 
awakening  teaches  us  how  to  read  and  gives  to 
us  a  power  of  divination  in  the  choice  of  read- 
ing. One  by  one  we  grapple  with  these  books, 
exhaust  their  first  magical  influence  over  us,  and 
by  these  assimilations  build  up  our  own  structure. 

I  should  be  glad  to  read  Emerson's  volumes 
again  for  the  first  time ;  I  cannot  recover  the 
old  sensation.  I  open  them  memorially.  Per- 
chance, I  may  like  the  author  I  am  reading  bet- 
ter; but  Emerson's  generative  power  one  recog- 
nises in  many  a  successor.  If  you  have  lived  in 
and  through  his  volumes  you  never  will  be  sati- 
ated while  there  is  still  in  the  world  a  good  book 
to  be  read  or  to  be  written.  They  create  an 
immortal  appetite  and  expectation. 

I  closed  the  volume  of  Representative  Men 
and  put  it  back  in  its  place,  but  I  could  not  leave 
it  there,  nor  could  I  afford  to  purchase  it.  I 
9 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

inquired  the  price.  "  Seventy-five  cents,"  was 
the  answer.  That  was  a  princely  sum  to  the 
poor  student  who,  to  eke  out  his  schooling,  re- 
ceived just  that  amount  per  week  for  delivering 
a  daily  newspaper  to  sundry  subscribers.  The 
glance  the  clerk  gave  my  shabby  coat  indicated 
he  had  measured  my  poverty.  I  fingered  the 
money  reluctantly,  yet  not  seeing  any  other  copy 
of  the  book  and  fearing  that  if  I  lost  this  oppor- 
tunity I  might  never  see  it  again,  I  could  no 
more  resist  the  inclination  to  possess  it  than  to 
drink  at  a  spring  when  thirsty.  The  true  value 
of  money  depends  upon  that  for  which  you  ex- 
change it,  as  I  have  always  found  when  it  is  ex- 
changed for  a  good  book.  If  you  draw  a  mark 
of  equality  between  Representative  Men  and 
seventy-five  cents  you  will  see  how  much  richer 
I  was  with  the  book  than  with  the  money.  This 
was  the  first  volume  that  I  bought  with  my  own 
money,  and  none  since  has  educated  me  so  much 
and  none  now  pleases  me  so  well  to  see  with  its 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

broken  back  and  bent  corners,  its  general  look 
of  shabbiness,  worn  with  much  packing  and 
travel,  and  its  scribblings  on  the  wide  margins 
made  in  the  days  when  I  read  it  with  ambitious 
zeal  and  began  to  feel  wise  and  melancholy,  and 
even  to  think  I  could  piece  out  Emerson's  sen- 
tences with  reflections  of  my  own. 

I  read  this  book  until  I  had  drawn  out  as  much 
as  there  was  for  me  at  that  time.  It  seemed  to 
be  written  for  me.  Youth  is  full  of  remarkable 
discoveries  and  affinities.  Nothing  looks  its 
hoary  age,  nor  hints  to  fresh  young  life  that 
his  is  not  a  peculiar  experience,  but  is  merely 
one  of  the  unnumbered  coincidences  in  human 
existence ;  otherwise  we  should  be  born  old,  or 
seeing  the  monotonous  revolution  should  not 
wish  to  live.  We  begin  with  an  enormous  appe- 
tite for  the  spectacle,  and  soon  wish  to  become 
a  part  of  it.  Everything  solicits  us  to  be  an 
actor,  even  our  dreams.  I  did  not  comprehend 
Representative  Men  in  the  sense  of  mastering 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

the  printed  page ;  but  what  one  finds  in  books 
is  not  always  a  comprehension  of  them;  it  is 
sometimes  provocation,  the  winged  impulse 
toward  the  light,  toward  mental  activity  and 
self-expression  and  a  communion  with  all  that  is 
strong  and  lovely.  To  this  end  some  books 
seem  to  designate  themselves  with  an  especial 
character  and  emphasis. 

It  was  not  long  before  other  of  Emerson's 
writings  came  to  light ;  and  I  cannot  help  re- 
marking here  how  an  ingenuous  and  instinctive 
appetite  is  fated  to  find  its  congenial  nutriment. 
What  belongs  to  us  is  also  seeking  us.  Emer- 
son was  the  prophet  of  young  men,  and  his  voice 
had  the  marvellous  faculty  of  reaching  them  in 
the  most  obscure  and  unexpected  places.  Usu- 
ally this  was  followed  by  some  sort  of  personal 
intercourse.  The  enterprise  of  young  men  is  to 
possess  the  thing  they  love.  Possession  cools 
this  ardor,  and  soon  enough  we  care  for  the  book 
rather  than  the  author,  when  we  can,  unhindered 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

by  the  intoxicating  personality  calmly  weigh  its 
work.  I  believe  Emerson  liked  to  meet  those 
whom  his  books  had  reached  and  moved.  He 
was  always  accessible  and  gracious.  His  man- 
ners—  how  shall  one  speak  justly  of  them! 
They  were  those  of  the  finest  women  one  has 
ever  seen  or  heard,  blended  with  those  magnifi- 
cent moments  in  the  lives  of  ancient  sages  and 
demigods  which  make  the  ideals  of  human 
intercourse.  They  were  triumphant  and  just  a 
little  oppressive  in  their  novelty  until  one  had 
adjusted  himself  to  them.  His  presence  and 
conversation  were  a  few  more  pages  out  of  the 
essays  on  Heroism,  Poetry,  Love,  Circles,  and 
Great  Men ;  so  that  when  you  arrived  at  his  door 
you  entered  the  same  house  that  you  left  behind 
in  his  books. 

After  I  had  read  in  Emerson  for  some  time  I 
had  the  boldness  to  write  to  him  and  the  good 
fortune  to  be  answered.  In  my  note  I  had  solic- 
ited his  opinion  in  regard  to  college  education. 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

I  will  quote  so  much  of  his  reply  as  is  not  per- 
sonal ;  "  To  a  brave  soul  it  really  seems  indiffer- 
ent whether  its  tuition  is  in  or  out  of  college. 
And  yet  I  confess  to  a  strong  bias  in  favor  of 
college.  I  think  we  cannot  give  ourselves  too 
many  advantages ;  and  he  who  goes  to  Cambridge 
has  free  the  best  of  that  kind.  When  he  has  seen 
their  little  all  he  will  rate  it  very  moderately  be- 
side that  which  he  brought  thither.  There  are 
many  things  much  better  than  a  college ;  an  ex- 
ploring expedition  if  one  could  join  it ;  or  the  liv- 
ing with  any  great  master  in  one's  proper  art ;  but 
in  the  common  run  of  opportunities  and  with  no 
more  than  the  common  proportion  of  energy  in 
ourselves,  a  college  is  safest,  from  its  literary  tone 
and  from  the  access  to  books  it  gives  —  mainly 
that  it  introduces  you  to  the  best  of  your  con- 
temporaries. But  if  you  can  easily  come  to  Con- 
cord and  spend  an  afternoon  with  me  we  could 
talk  over  the  whole  case  by  the  river  bank." 
I  had  not  then  the  courage  nor  the  opportunity 
14 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

to  accept  his  friendly  invitation.  But  the  next 
year,  being  not  far  from  Concord,  at  the  Phillips 
Academy  of  Andover,  I  thought  the  time  had 
come.  Life  there  had  become  insupportable ;  I 
was  ready  to  abandon  college  education  unless 
encouraged  by  some  other  arguments  than  those 
I  could  draw  from  the  character  of  the  prepara- 
tion. My  only  intimate  at  Andover,  William 
T.  Harris,  the  philosopher,  had  been  able  to 
escape  betimes  and  left  me  without  a  compan- 
ion. Necessity  compelled  me  to  remain  if  I 
wished  to  go  to  college.  While  Harris  was 
there  we  contrived,  amid  a  crowd  of  youth  in  all 
stages  of  preparation  for  the  ministry,  to  main- 
tain several  starveling  muses.  With  two  flutes, 
a  small  telescope,  much  poetry  and  the  begin- 
nings of  that  philosophy  which  Mr.  Harris  has 
since  so  splendidly  fulfilled  we  nourished  our 
aspirations  and  all  the  indefinable  emotions  of 
youth.  We  found  or  made  tunes  to  many  of 
Tennyson's  lyrical  poems  and  sang  them  in  our 
15 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

long  walks  together  over  the  Andover  hills, 
neglecting  Homer  and  Virgil,  whom  we  were 
not  taught  to  read  for  any  purpose  save  the  drill 
in  exceptions  and  construction. 

I  had  now  a  precise  object  and  need  of  seeing 
Emerson.  I  thought  he  could  advise  me  how 
to  become  educated  and  where.  For  the  school 
offered  nothing  I  craved.  Its  methods  were 
brutal  and  monkish;  its  regimen,  that  is,  its 
dormitories  and  commons-table  had  barely  kept 
some  thousands  of  dyspeptic  alumni  in  this 
world  (and  had  sent  I  know  not  how  many  to  the 
other),  and  maintained  thereby  the  chief  bul- 
wark of  a  bad  creed,  a  bad  digestion.  One  of 
its  disciples  confessed  to  me  that  he  got  up  in 
the  morning  a  Unitarian  but  toward  night  the 
gnawing  in  his  stomach  brought  him  around  to 
Orthodoxy. 

I  therefore  set  out  one  damp  day  in  May,  1852, 
in  search  of  the  oracle  that  was  to  answer  my 
questions  and  who  was  to  be  the  voice  of  destiny. 
16 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

What  trepidations  and  misgivings!  The  self- 
conscious  student  is  thinking  what  sort  of  a 
figure  he  will  cut  ;\  he  remembers  his  youth  and 
its  insignificance  to  any  but  himself;  and  the 
greatness  of  the  great  is  vastly  exaggerated  by 
the  comparison.  It  seemed  to  me  I  was  going 
to  speak  with  a  man  who  like  the  person  in 
Plutarch's  story,  only  conversed  with  men  one 
day  in  the  year ;  the  remainder  he  spent  with 
the  nymphs  and  daemons ;  and  that  day,  for  the 
current  year,  had  been  allotted  to  me.  The 
fact  that  I  went  clandestinely,  that  Emerson's 
name  and  books  were  never  mentioned  nor 
known  by  any  one  in  my  world  and  that  I  was 
wholly  unaware  of  the  other  members  of  his 
circle,  called  sometimes  the  Transcendentalists, 
or  their  works  and  influence,  probably  added  a 
certain  zest  to  the  adventure.  At  the  gate  of 
the  well-known  walk  it  would  have  been  easier 
to  retreat  than  to  enter.  Such  is  the  experience 
of  those  about  to  grasp  what  they  have  long 
17 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

awaited  and  desired.  I  went  on,  however,  as 
one  in  the  end  always  does.  I  entered,  and 
giving  my  name,  was  welcomed  in  a  manner  that 
at  once  banished  embarrassment. 

Thoreau  was  already  there.  I  think  he  had 
ended  his  experiment  at  Walden  Pond  some 
years  before.  Thoreau  was  dressed,  I  remem- 
ber, in  a  plain,  neat  suit  of  dark  clothes,  not 
quite  black.  He  had  a  healthy,  out-of-door  ap- 
pearance, and  looked  like  a  respectable  husband- 
man. He  was  rather  silent;  when  he  spoke,  it 
was  in  either  a  critical  or  a  witty  vein.  I  did 
not  know  who  or  what  he  was ;  and  I  find  in  my 
old  diary  of  the  day  that  I  spelled  his  rare  name 
phonetically,  and  heard  afterward  that  he  was  a 
man  who  had  been  a  hermit.  I  observed  that 
he  was  much  at  home  with  Emerson ;  and  as  he 
remained  through  the  afternoon  and  evening, 
and  I  left  him  still  at  the  fireside,  he  appeared 
to  me  to  belong  in  some  way  to  the  household. 
I  observed  also  that  Emerson  continually  deferred 

18 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

to  him  and  seemed  to  anticipate  his  view,  pre- 
paring himself  obviously  for  a  quiet  laugh  at 
Thoreau's  negative  and  biting  criticisms,  espe- 
cially in  regard  to  education  and  educational 
institutions.  He  was  clearly  fond  of  Thoreau ; 
but  whether  in  a  human  way,  or  as  an  amuse- 
ment, I  could  not  then  make  out.  Dear,  indeed, 
as  I  have  since  learned,  was  Thoreau  to  that 
household;  where  his  memory  is  kept  green, 
where  Emerson's  children  still  speak  of  him  as 
their  elder  brother.  In  the  evening  Thoreau 
devoted  himself  wholly  to  the  children  and  the 
parching  of  corn  by  the  open  fire.  I  think  he 
made  himself  very  entertaining  to  them.  Emer- 
son was  talking  to  me,  and  I  was  only  conscious 
of  Thoreau's  presence  as  we  are  of  those  about 
us  but  not  engaged  with  us.  A  very  pretty 
picture  remains  in  my  memory  of  Thoreau  lean- 
ing over  the  fire  with  a  fair  girl  on  either  side, 
which  somehow  did  not  comport  with  the  sub- 
sequent story  I  heard  of  his  being  a  hermit. 
19 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

Parched  corn  had  for  him  a  fascination  beyond 
the  prospect  of  something  to  eat.  He  says  in 
one  of  his  books  that  some  dishes  recommend 
themselves  to  our  imaginations  as  well  as  pal- 
ates. "  In  parched  corn,  for  instance,  there  is  a 
manifest  sympathy  between  the  bursting  seed  and 
the  more  perfect  developments  of  vegetable  life. 
It  is  a  perfect  flower  with  its  petals,  like  the 
Houstonia  or  anemone.  On  my  warm  hearth 
these  cerealian  blossoms  expanded." 

I  never  saw  Thoreau  again  until  I  heard  him  in 
Boston  Music  Hall  deliver  his  impassioned  eulogy 
on  John  Brown.  Meantime  the  "  Week  on  the 
Concord  and  Merrimac  Rivers "  had  become 
one  of  my  favorite  books ;  and  I  have  atoned  for 
my  youthful  and  untimely  want  of  recognition 
by  bringing  from  my  ocean  beach  a  smooth 
pebble  to  his  cairn  at  Walden.  I  gathered  the 
stone  in  the  ancient  pharmaceutical  manner, 
with  the  spell  of  one  of  Thoreau's  songs: 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

"  My  sole  employment  'tis  and  scrupulous  care 

To  place  my  gains  beyond  the  reach  of  tides ; 
Each  smoother  pebble,  and  each  shell  more  rare, 
Which  ocean  kindly  to  my  hand  confides. ' ' 

In  the  conversation  of  an  afternoon  and  even- 
ing it  is  impossible  to  relate  all  that  was  said ; 
one  thinks  he  never  shall  forget  a  word  of  such 
a  memorable  day ;  but  at  length  it  becomes  over- 
laid in  the  chambers  of  the  memory  and  only 
reappears  when  uncalled  for.  I  find  set  down 
in  my  diary  of  the  day  two  or  three  things  which 
a  thousand  observers  have  remarked :  that  Emer- 
son spoke  in  a  mild,  peculiar  manner,  justifying 
the  text  of  Thoreau,  that  you  must  be  calm  be- 
fore you  can  utter  oracles ;  that  he  often  hesi- 
tated for  a  word,  but  it  was  the  right  one  he 
waited  for ;  that  he  sometimes  expressed  him- 
self mystically,  and  like  a  book.  This  meant,  I 
suppose,  that  the  style  and  subjects  were  novel 
to  me,  being  then  only  used  to  the  slang  of  school- 
boys and  the  magisterial  manner  of  pedagogues. 
He  seldom  looked  the  person  addressed  in  the 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

eye,  and  rarely  put  direct  questions.  I  fancy 
this  was  a  part  of  his  extreme  delicacy  of  manner. 
As  soon  as  I  could  I  introduced  the  problem  I 
came  to  propound  —  what  course  a  young  man 
must  take  to  get  the  best  kind  of  education. 

]  Emerson  pleaded  always  for  the  college ;  said 
he  himself  entered  at  fourteen.  This  aroused 
the  wrath  of  Thoreau,  who  would  not  allow  any 
good  to  the  college  course.  And  here  it  seemed 
to  me  Emerson  said  things  on  purpose  to  draw 
Thoreau's  fire  and  to  amuse  himself.  When  the 
curriculum  at  Cambridge  was  alluded  to,  and 
Emerson  casually  remarked  that  most  of  the 
branches  were  taught  there,  Thoreau  seized 
one  of  his  opportunities  and  replied:  "Yes, 

\  indeed,  all  the  branches  and  none  of  the  roots." 
At  this  Emerson  laughed  heartily.  So  without 
conclusions,  or  more  light  than  the  assertions  of 
two  representative  men  can  give,  I  heard  agi- 
tated for  an  hour  my  momentous  question. 
At  that  period  it  seemed  to  me  men  acquired 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

by  mere  industry  whatever  talents  and  position 
they  possessed.  Anybody  could  come  to  great- 
ness by  persistent  study  and  effort ;  we  were  to 
be  self-made  men  —  that  was  the  popular  phrase 
of  the  time  —  regardless  of  whether  the  Creator 
had  done  little  or  nothing  for  us,  and  we  were 
constantly  reminded  of  Benjamin  Franklin  and 
that  the  way  to  the  White  House  was  always 
open  to  the  sober  and  industrious  young  man. 
Sobriety  and  industry  and  frugality  were  the 
three  commandments  of  the  farm  and  the  shop ; 
and  if  the  boy  left  his  father's  field  or  bench  for 
college  or  a  profession  he  was  enjoined  to  exem- 
plify these  principles  in  the  exercise  of  his  intel- 
lectual faculties  and  functions  as  he  had  been 
trained  to  do  at  home. 

I  was  therefore  somewhat  confused  in  my  no- 
tions regarding  education  by  finding  thai.  Emer- 
son, who  as  I  then  believed  had  made  himself 
a  great  man,  was  also  college  bred.  Whether 
from  desire  to  follow  his  example,  or  because  I 
23 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

was  already  nearly  prepared  for  college,  I  found 
myself  involuntarily  coinciding  with  Emerson's 
views  rather  than  Thoreau's  whimsical  opinions. 
Yet  Thoreau  had  been  to  college ;  but  at  some 
strange  epoch  in  his  life  he  had  broken  with 
his  past  and  many  of  the  traditions  and  conven- 
tions of  his  contemporaries.  He  had  resolved  to 
live  according  to  Nature;  and  had  the  usual 
desire  to  publish  the  fact  and  explain  the  pro- 
ceeding. It  had  never,  however,  the  tone  of 
apology ;  and  it  is  our  good  fortune  that  he  was 
not  too  singularly  great  to  feel  the  need  of 
communicating  himself  to  his  kind.  Never  has 
any  writer  so  identified  himself  with  Nature 
and  so  constantly  used  it  as  the  symbol  of  his 
interior  life.  It  is  sometimes  difficult  to  distin- 
guish Thoreau  from  his  companions,  the  woods, 
the  woodchucks,  and  muskrats,  the  birds,  the 
pond  and  the  river.  An  inspired  prescience 
foretold  where  to  find  the  flower  he  wanted, 
and  how  to  lure  the  little  Musketaquid  perch  to 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

his  hand.  Rare  plants  bloomed  when  he  arrived 
at  their  secret  hiding-places  as  if  they  had  made 
an  appointment  with  him ;  and  the  birds  knew 
their  lover's  old  cap  and  never  mistook  his  tele- 
scope for  a  gun.  In  his  intercourse  with  nature 
his  pilot  was  some  prophetic  thought  which  led 
him  by  sure  instinct  to  its  sympathetic  analogon 
in  nature.  It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  to 
such  a  man  systems  of  education  should  seem 
hindrances;  they  interposed  another's  will 
across  the  track  of  one's  native  intuitions.  To 
shake  off  such  substitutes  with  all  their  baggage 
was  his  prime  intention. 

r  Emerson,  on  the  contrary,  wished  for  every 
help  and  advantage  offered  by  the  world  of  men, 
books  and  institutions ;  he  proposed  indeed,  that 
man  should  go  alone,  but  not  necessarily _on_  all- 
fours  or  on  the  stilts  of  pedantry.  He  was 
to  give  himself  all  the  available  advantages  in 
order  to  measure  himself  with  them,  and  that 
he  might  not  be  dazzled  or  embarrassed  by 
25 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

illusions  concerning  them.  He  began  with 
nature  and  ended  with  it ;  between  there  should 
lay  a  long  succession  of  studies  and-adyentures 
which  were  to  be  included  in  his  idrra-oi .-culture. 
In  his  conversation  with  me,  however,  he  spoke 
more  of  men  and  books  than  of  nature.  He 
commended  Adam  Smith's  Moral  Sentiments; 
also,  J.  St.  John's  volume  on  Greek  Manners 
and  Customs.  Doubtless  he  conformed  himself 
to  his  visitor  and  became  a  bit  of  a  pedagogue. 
Then  he  talked  of  Chaucer  with  great  enthusiasm, 
and  recited  some  lines  in  a  tone  and  modulation 
which  rendered  their  music  perfectly: 

' '  For  him  was  lever  have  at  his  beddes  heed 
Twenty  bokes,  clad  in  blak  or  reed, 
Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophye, 
Than  robes  riche, — 


And  bisily  gan  for  the  soules  pray 

Of  hem  that  yaf  him  wher-with  to  scoleye." 

What  a  fine,  obsolete  word  is  "  scoleye;"  and 
how  much  we  need  to  get  it  back  as  an  antidote 
to  the  vocabulary  of  college  sports. 
26 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

Emerson  spoke  of  Plato  also,  saying  that  it 
was  a  great  day  in  a  man's  life  when  he  first 
read  The  Banquet.  I  was  glad  to  hear  him  say 
that,  because  I  knew  there  were  such  days,  hav- 
ing had  just  one  in  my  short  life,  and  eagerly  I 
heard  there  was  a  possibility  of  more.  He 
brought  forth  some  souvenirs  of  men  and  litera- 
ture ;  among  them  a  daguerreotype  of  Carlyle ;  he 
spoke  of  his  physiognomy,  his  heavy  eyebrows 
and  projecting  base  of  the  forehead,  underset 
by  the  heavy  lower  jaw  and  lip,  between  which 
as  between  millstones,  he  said,  every  humbug 
was  sure  to  be  pulverised.  The  brow  pierced 
it,  the  jowl  crunched  it.  Emerson  said,  Chan- 
ning  called  his  under  lip,  whapper-jawed.  I 
asked  him  something  about  Carlyle 's  manner 
of  speech,  remembering  to  have  read  somewhere 
of  a  peculiar  refrain  in  his  conversation.  Then 
he  good-naturedly  imitated  it  for  me.  Emer- 
son was  an  excellent  mimic  when  he  chose  to  be. 
He  said  the  conspicuous  point  in  Carlyle 's  style 
27 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

was  his  strength  of  statement.  I  think  at  this 
date  those  critics  who  can  never  see  but  one  ob- 
ject at  a  time,  and  whose  chief  insight  is  a  com- 
parison of  one  creative  gift  with  another,  were 
still  insisting  that  Emerson  was  only  the  adul- 
terated echo  of  Carlyle.  In  1848  they  received  a 
broadside  from  Mr.  J.  R.  Lowell's  Fable  for 
Critics,  where  he  drew  up  in  rather  pedantic, 
antithetical  form  the  resemblances  and  contrasts 
between  Carlyle  and  Emerson.  Mr.  Lowell  went 
on,  however,  to  commit  the  same  mistake  in 
regard  to  supposed  imitators  of  Emerson  that 
already  had  been  made  in  regard  to  Carlyle 's. 
Among  Emerson's  literary  treasures  he 
showed  me  a  folio  copy  of  Montaigne  which  had 
once  belonged  to  the  library  of  Joseph  Bona- 
parte. It  had  a  fine  engraving  of  Montaigne; 
under  it  the  scales  and  the  motto,  "  Que  scais- 
je?" — What  do  I  know?  This  I  took  to  be  the 
volume  before  Emerson  when  he  wrote,  "  As  I 
look  at  his  effigy  opposite  the  title-page,  I  seem 
28 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

to  hear  him  say,  You  may  play  old  Poz,  if  you 
will;  you  may  rail  and  exaggerate,  I  stand 
here  for  truth,  and  will  not,  for  all  the  States, 
and  churches,  and  revenues,  and  personal 
reputations  of  Europe,  overstate  the  dry  fact, 
as  I  see  it;  I  will  rather  mumble  and  prose 
about  what  I  certainly  know  —  my  house  and 
barn ;  my  father,  my  wife  and  tenants ;  my  old, 
lean,  bald  pate;  my  knives  and  forks;  what 
meats  I  eat ;  and  what  drinks  I  prefer ;  and  a 
hundred  straws  just  as  ridiculous  —  than  I  will 
write,  with  a  fine  crow-quill,  a  fine  romance." 
Last  he  called  me  to  look  at  the  single  paint- 
ing on  the  walls  of  his  study,  a  copy  of  Angelo's 
Fates.  We  looked  at  it  in  silence.  What  had 
youth  to  do  with  those  remorseless  sisters? 
Youth  would  rather  have  chosen  to  ornament 
his  chamber-study  (rent  one  dollar  per  term) 
with  pictures  of  Aphrodite  and  the  Muses.  As 
a  matter  of  fact  the  poor  student's  walls  had  not 
even  paper-hangings  —  only  endless  tapestries 
29 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

of  the  unattainable.  I  amused  myself  in  look- 
ing over  the  bookcases;  and  Emerson  took 
down  a  volume  which  he  requested  me  to  read 
and  keep  for  a  year.  It  was  George  Herbert's 
poems.  When  I  returned  the  book,  mentioning 
my  profitable  hours  with  it,  Emerson  wrote  me 
a  welcome  letter  in  which  he  said,  alluding  to 
Herbert,  "  I  am  glad  you  like  these  old  books; 
or  rather  glad  that  you  have 

"  Eyes  that  the  beam  celestial  view 
Which  evermore  makes  all  things  new." 

He  went  on  to  say,  ' '  There  is  a  super-Cad- 
mean  alphabet,  which  when  one  has  once  learned 
the  character,  he  will  find,  as  it  were,  secretly 
inscribed,  look  where  he  will,  not  only  in  books 
and  temples  but  in  all  waste  places  and  in  the 
dust  of  the  earth.  Happy  he  who  can  read  it, 
for  he  will  never  be  lonely  or  thoughtless  again. 
And  yet  there  is  a  solid  pleasure  to  find  those 
who  know  and  like  the  same  thing,  the  authors, 
who  have  recorded  their  interpretation  of  the 
30 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

legend,  and  better  far  the  living  friends  who 
read  as  we  do  and  compare  notes  with  us." 

George  Herbert  recalls  to  me  Emerson's  re- 
mark in  regard  to  the  proper  part  of  the  day 
for  study  —  that  we  must  be  Stoics  in  the  morn- 
ing; that  it  would  do  to  relax  a  little  in  the 
evening;  and  his  quoting  in  illustration  a  some- 
what Orphic  proverb  from  George  Herbert's 
"  Jacula  Prudentum,"  "  In  the  morning,  moun- 
tains; in  the  evening,  fountains." 

Besides  these  fragments  of  the  hours  I  spent 
with  Emerson,  I  find  in  my  memoranda  that  he 
held  a  light  opinion  of  things  this  side  the  f 
water ;  that  we  Americans  are  solemn  on  trifles 
and  superficial  in  the  weighty;  that  there  is  no. 
American  literature  ;*  Griswold  says  there  is,  but 
it  is  his  merchandise  —  he  keeps  its  shop.  Had 
Emerson  also  forgotten  the  Rev.  Cotton  Mather's 
three  hundred  and  eighty-two  works?  He  said 
we  needed  some  great  poets,  orators.  He  was 

1  This  was  in  1852. 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

always  looking  out  for  them,  and  was  sure  the 
new  generation  of  young  men  would  contain 
some.  Thoreau  here  remarked  he  had  found 
one,  in  the  woods,  but  it  had  feathers  and  had 
not  been  to  Harvard  College.  Still  it  had  a 
voice  and  an  aerial  inclination,  which  was  pretty 
much  all  that  was  needed.  "  Let  us  cage  it," 
said  Emerson.  "  That  is  just  the  way  the  world 
always  spoils  its  poets,"  responded  Thoreau. 
Then  Thoreau,  as  usual,  had  the  last  word; 
there  was  a  laugh,  in  which  for  the  first  time 
he  joined  heartily,  as  the  perquisite  of  the  vic- 
tor. Then  we  went  in  to  tea  in  right  good  hu-  J 
mor.  I  remember  not  much  of  the  evening's 
talk.  Probably  my  measure  was  full ;  it  was  a 
peck,  and  here  was  a  bushel.  However,  I.  have 
always  felt  that  the  silver  cup  somehow  got  into 
my  tin)'  bag. 

In  subsequent  pages  I  shall  endeavor  to  sum- 
marize and  convey  what   Emerson  was  to  the 
young  men  of  my  time.     By  a  natural  affinity 
32 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

we  who  were  his  readers, soon  found  each  other. 
It  was  under  cover  of  a  partial,  general  agree- 
ment that  we  allowed  ourselves  to  feel  that  he 
spoke  for  young  men  and  women ;  that  he  was 
their  champion,  in  the  fresh,  mysterious  impulses 
of  a  new  day ;  that  he  expressed  what  they  were 
as  yet  only  feeling,  mingling  poetry  and  philos- 
ophy in  due  proportions  for  their  budding  minds ; 
and  that  in  personal  intercourse  with  them  he 
acted  the  part  of  a  lover,  intimating  that  they 
were  the  wisdom  and  the  inspiration  of  all  his 
thought ;  deferring  to  them  as  superior  persons 
more  newly  arrived  from  the  empyrean ;  while, 
in  truth,  they  were  indebted  to  him  for  a  cer- 
tain beautiful  exaltation  of  purpose  and  conduct 
which  fitted  them  to  be  his  audience,  and  the 
object  of  his  solicitude  and  admiration.  Who- 
ever plants  seeds  and  afterward  enjoys  the  flower 
and  fruit  does  not  much  remember  his  toil,  so 
great  is  his  joy,  but  gives  the  whole  credit  to  the 
soil,  to  the  sun  and  to  the  shower. 
33 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

That  Emerson  was  conscious  of  his  relation  to 
the  youth  of  his  time  is  shown  in  a  letter  to  Eliza- 
beth Peabody  in  which  he  says,  "  My  special 
parish  is  young  men  inquiring  their  way  in  life. " 

And  to  Carlyle  he  writes  to  the  same  effect : 
"  As  usual  at  this  season  of  the  year,  I,  in- 
corrigible spouting  Yankee,  am  writing  an  ora- 
tion to  deliver  to  the  boys  in  one  of  the  little 
country  colleges  nine  days  hence.  (This  was 
The  Method  of  Nature,  before  the  Society  of 
the  Adelphi,  Waterville  College,  Maine,.  1841). 
You  will  say  I  do  not  deserve  the  help  of  any 
Muse.  Oh,  if  you  knew  how  natural  it  is  to  me 
to  run  to  these  places.  Besides,  I  am  always 
lured  by  the  hope  of  saying  something  which 
shall  stick  by  the  good  boys. ' ' 

Emerson's  attitude  of  expectancy  and  gener- 
ous recognition  of  the  possibilities  of  youth 
were  in  part  the  source  of  his  intellectual  power. 
Not  a  descent  through  seven  generations  of 
clergymen  gave  it  to  him,  but  an  ascent  through 
34 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

the  long  and  broken  lines   of  loftiest  genii  *  of 
all  ages. 

"  Nature's  bequest  gives  nothing,  but  doth  lend: 
And  being  frank,  she  lends  to  those  are  free." 

Since  the  days  of  Socrates  no  young  men  have 
been' more  fortunate  than  those  who  came  into 
the  circle  of  his  acquaintance  and  influence. 
There  were  others,  older  and  more  conservative, 
who  wished  to  gather  some  marketable  fruit 
from  this  elm.  There  were  those  who  wished 
to  subsidise  him  to  some  school,  party,  or  sect. 
I  think  that  Emerson  knew  his  interlocutor,  his 
man,  very  well.  He  had  not  packed  your  trunk, 
but  he  divined  its  contents.  He  did  not  resist 
too  much ;  he  did  not  waste  his  force  in  vain 
disputation,  but  obeyed  the  Greek  verse : 

"  When  to  be  wise  is  all  in  vain,  be  not  wise  at  all." 

And  it  has  been   related   that  he  went  to  bed 

to  escape  argument.     He  punished  the  Western 

men  who  pressed  him  too  hard  with  question 

35 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

anr".  objection,  by  reporting  that  the  St.  Louis 
logicians  rolled  him  in  the  mud ! 

He  knew  his  man  well.  His  kindness  and  tact 
were  never  at  fault.  Some  one  has  related  that 
calling  on  him,  he  fumbled  about  his  room  for  — 
a  ripe  pear!  Yes,  he  understood  when  to  proffer 
pears  and  when  ideas.  The  Pythian  oracle  was 
ambiguous  when  the  suppliant  came  upon  a  triv- 
ial errand.  When  men  came  only  to  have  their 
fortunes  told,  or  to  know  how  their  peddling 
would  prosper,  the  response  became  confused 
and  diminished.  It  did  not  know  what  to  say. 
Then  men  accused  it  of  obscurity  and  pre- 
varication. They  silenced  what  should  have 
silenced  them.  It  is  easy  to  be  inspired  at  a  no- 
ble demand.  As  long  as  there  are  sincere,  earn- 
est seekers,  so  long  will  the  oracles  continue  and 
continue  divine.  Emerson  refused  to  dogmatise 
about  what  is  necessarily  obscure  at  present.  So 
some  thought  the  obscurity  lay  in  him. 

To  all  that  man  has  achieved,  and  to  all 
36 


A  Day  with  Emerson 

man's  hopes,  he  was  vividly  responsive,  and 
maintained  no  doubtful  position.  In  poetry  and 
nature,  wherein  he  was  greatest,  it  is  to  be  con- 
sidered that  the  most  perfect  imaginative  ex- 
pression is  so  identified  with  objects  themselves 
as  to  share  in  their  mystery,  and  to  be  capable 
of  their  own  manifold  interpretation.  He  dis- 
covered a  new  method  of  thinking  about  man 
and  nature ;  he  endeavored  to  report  what  they 
said  to  him  in  their  inmost  being.  Others 
have  used  them  as  symbols  of  life;  he  tried  to 
penetrate  the  symbol  itself.  This  gave  an 
elevation  to  his  style,  so  that  error  was  glad  to 
be  vanquished  by  so  serene  a  voice,  and  to  fall 
down  without  noise  or  commotion. 

"  A  gentle  death  did  Falsehood  die, 
Shot  thro'  and  thro'  with  cunning  words." 


37 


Emerson's  Influence  on  the  Young 
Men  of  his  Time 


EMERSON'S     INFLUENCE     ON    THE 
YOUNG  MEN  OF  HIS  TIME. 

The  men  whose  youth  fell  in  the  decade  pre- 
ceding the  civil  war  and  who  read  books,  espe- 
cially poetry,  were  deeply  moved  on  first  reading 
Emerson.  The  feeling  we  then  had  and  the 
manner  in  which  we  variously  expressed  it 
would  even  now,  in  the  completion  of  his  life 
and  fame,  seem  exaggerated  to  the  world  as 
indeed  it  does  to  ourselves.  Youth  is  the  happy 
time  when  comparisons  are  not  made,  when  we 
admire  without  criticism  and  are  wholly  pos- 
sessed by  the  spirit  of  imitation.  There  were 
very  few  of  us  who  did  not  catch  the  style  of 
his  sentences  and  his  ideas  immediately  became 
our  own.  They  were  reproduced  on  a  hundred 
occasions  and  we  experienced  a  deep,  heartfelt 
pride  in  our  superiority.  Some  endeavored  to 
form  their  lives  upon  his  ideals,  not  unsuccess- 
41 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

fully;  others  to  dip  their  pens  in  his  inkstand 
with  the  usual  catastrophe.  The  ease  with  which 
his  name  lent  itself  to  an  adjective  —  Emerson- 
ian —  was  a  great  comfort  and  convenience  to 
our  critics ;  to  define  the  term  was  more  than 
they  or  we  could  do.  When  hurled  at  us  we 
realised  it  meant  something  opprobrious;  but 
when  reading  Emerson's  books  there  was  an 
exalted  mood,  a  mental  quickening,  for  which 
no  epithet  was  good  enough.  Thus  our  defen- 
sive position  was  difficult  to  hold  though  we  jus- 
tified ourselves  in  it,  and  we  became  more  or 
less  concealed  and  silent  except  with  sympathis- 
ers. I  was  looked  upon  with  suspicion  by  my 
friends  when  it  became  known  that  I  was  a 
reader  of  Emerson.  I  knew  they  were  ignorant 
of  the  contents  of  his  books ;  yet  I  felt  conscious 
of  something  not  quite  respectable  and  per- 
mitted. .One  learns  later  that  innocent  and  sen- 
sitive persons  can  easily  be  made  to  feel  guilty; 
and  in  New  England  at  least  we  had  been  made 
42 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

to  believe  so  long  that  nearly  everything  which 
was  agreeable  was  sinful  that  it  had  grown  into 
a  morbid  sensibility  to  opinion. 

It  was  for  many  such  prisoners  that  Emerson 
found  a  release.  He  freed  us  from  the  control 
of  some  ancient,  theological  tenets  and  led  us 
to  the  simpler  and  still  more  ancient  moral  ele- 
ments of  the  universe.  jM:hink  one  of  Emer- 
son's chief  services  to  his  countrymeins^and 
will  continue  to  be  in  disentangling  the  connec- 
tion between  forms  of  religion  anxL_ethirs;  JJL 
once  more  planting  prostrate  man  upon  his  feet 
and  then  uplifting  his  eyes  to  the  spiritual  beau- 
ties and  dignities  of  life.  No  matter  what  his 
topic,  he  everywhere  reaches  that  conclusion. 
There  is  this  thread  through  his  most  illogical 
pages ;  this  central  thought  unifies  his  unarticu- 
lated  sentences.  In  general  it  may  be  answered 
to  literary  objections  that  when  Emerson  is 
not  a  poet  he  is  a  prophet  and  as  such  is 
amenable  only  to  the  canons  which  govern  deliv- 

43 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

erances  of  that  kind.  It  is  perhaps  too  early  to 
pronounce  upon  Emerson's  place  in  letters.  It 
is  uncertain  whether  he  belongs  on  the  shelf 
with  poets,  prophets  or  moralists.  When  I 
read  his  poems  he  seems  wholly  poet ;  and  when 
I  read  Nature  and  the  earlier  essays  he  also 
seems  a  poet,  escaped  temporarily  into  prose. 
In  these  latter  he  keeps  near  unto  the  hedge  of 
his  "pleached  garden"  across  which  he  con- 
stantly coquets  with  the  Muse. 

As  to  his  style  no  one  has  yet  determined  its 
value  and  durable  quality.  A  genuine  style 
never  wearies;  time,  therefore,  and  many  gen- 
erations of  readers  must  settle  this  question. 
Tastes  change  as  much  and  as  often  in  literature 
as  in  other  things  and  with  surprising  rapidity 
in  our  time ;  yet  there  is  something,  we  will  not 
even  call  it  taste,  which  does  not  change.  It  is 
that  which  is  deeper,  more  permanent  than  taste, 
seated  at  the  center  of  man's  being  in  all  ages. 
There  is  much  in  Emerson's  mode  of  expression 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

which  of  itself  challenges  attention.     It  has  im- 
mense elevation;  it  goes  like  a  bird  from  one 
tree-top  to  another ;  or  as  the  gods  talk  around 
the  Olympian  peaks.     It  is  almost  too  lofty ;  one 
gasps  for  a  less  rarified  air  and  longs  to  touch 
the  ground.     With  Emerson  one  never  sees  any-  ? 
thing  less  than  a  vision,  hears  no  voice  but  thatV 
oHihe  soul ;  yes,  and  beyond  that  the  Over  Soul.  J 
All  is~in  the  distance,  a  vast  perspective  lined 
with  majestic  figures  of  men  and  women  as  they 
would  be  if  they  but  knew  their  own  worth ;  and 
at  the  end  a   lofty  temple   consecrated   to   the 
moral  sentiments. 

In  reading  English  Traits  I  cannot  divest 
myself  of  the  feeling  that  I  am  reading  of  a  peo- 
ple much  further  removed  than  England  and  in 
no  way  related  to  our  time  and  country ;  they 
seem  as  distant  and  in  truth  as  dead  as  Greeks 
or  Romans,  with  such  a  cool,  remote  and  con- 
templative pencil  does  he  paint  them.  Is  it  his 
imagination  that  produces  this  effect  or  is  it 

45 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

that  he  sees  things  never  before  disclosed  and 
hence  the  illusion  of  distance  and  unfamiliarity  ? 
The  essential,  national  qualities  are  there,  but 
abstracted  in  such  a  manner  that  they  stand  out 
like  a  scientific  diagnosis;  the  diagnosis  is  so 
interesting  and  acute  that  the  poor  patient  is 
forgotten. 

All  of  us  in  the  days  of  our  youth  saw  every- 
thing —  as  soon  as  Mr.  Emerson  had  seen  it  for 
us.  Our  experience  was  precisely  similar  to  his 
own  with  Montaigne.  He  says  in  one  of  the 
few  revelations  of  his  own  intellectual  history 
that  when  he  first  read  Montaigne  he  felt  as  if  he 
had  himself  written  the  book.  So  we  felt  when 
we  read  Emerson  and  we  had  in  him  a  precedent 
which'  we  much  relied  upon  and  often  quoted. 
Long  afterward  I  heard  a  religious  enthusiast  say 
that  if  some  one  had  not  written  the  New  Testa- 
ment he  should,  and  I  understood  him  through  a 
similar  feeling  regarding  other  books.  Often  as 
this  happens  to  the  sympathetic  reader  in  later 
46 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  xi&en 

life,  nothing  can  outwear  the  memory  of  tS 
first  youthful  experience  of  it,  and  very  dear  to 
the  heart  is  the  volume  and  venerated  the  writer 
at  whose  fires  we  have  lighted  our  own  little 
torch.  There  was  in  all  this  seeming  compre- 
hension the  usual  amount  of  self-deception  and 
illusion.  Emerson  shot  many  an  arrow  beyond 
our  ken ;  some  of  which  perhaps  it  -may  require 
several  ages  to  overtake;  but  we  beheld  the 
superb  flight  and  thought  we  could  see  the 
mark,  for  youth  is  both  confident  and  credulous. 
This  faith  kept  and  still  keeps  some  of  us  steady 
in  our  allegiance  to  the  Emersonian  insights. 
Having  found  an  interpretation  for  some  of  our 
aspirations  we  expected  to  arrive  at  all  in  due 
time.  We  believed  in  Emerson's  discoveries,  if 
you  will,  in  his  obscurities,  and  in  whatever  we 
could  put  into  his  writing  out  of  our  own 
thought.  This  belongs  to  the  writer  who  has 
stirred  us  as  much  as  what  he  has  actually  writ- 
ten belongs  to  him.  It  is  his  by  virtue  of  that 
47 


T"  Remembrances  of  Emerson 

t  germ  which  originates  others  and  still 
others  in  a  countless  series.  A  good  book  is  a 
book  plus  a  good  reader.  Find  what  you  may 
and  own  your  debt,  pay  it  and  say  as  Emerson 
said  to  his  children  when  they  asked  him  if  he 
believed  that  Shakespeare  meant  what  they 
found  to  praise  in  a  certain  sentence :  "I  think 
an  author  (or  artist)  has  a  right  to  anything 
good  that  another  can  find  in  his  work."  All 
the  interpretations  and  implications  are  his  as 
much  as  the  limbs  are  the  tree's  and  the  twigs, 
leaves,  blossoms  and  fruits  are  the  limb's. 

We  thought  with  Gautier  that  ' '  Genius  is  al- 
ways right;  whatever  it  invents  exists."  We 
listened  to  whatever  Emerson  said  with  a  certain 
haunting  expectation  seldom  disappointed ;  and 
it  must  be  confessed  for  a  time  we  narrowed  our 
world  by  having  no  ear  for  any  one  else;  so 
that  we  appreciated  keenly  the  witticism  of  a 
gentleman  who,  arriving  just  too  late  to  hear 
Emerson's  famous  Phi  Beta  Kappa  oration  at 
48 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

Cambridge,  in  1837,  remarked  that  it  was  better 
to  miss  Emerson  than  to  hear  anybody  else. 

Emerson  has  been  a  liberal  education  and 
emancipation  to  a  large  number  of  men  and 
women  for  nearly  two  generations.  One  can 
only  conjecture  whether  young  men  and  women 
today  are  reading  him  with  the  enthusiasm  of 
those  who  read  forty  years  ago  and  under  a  cer- 
tain ban  which  made  it  the  more  intoxicating. 
For  some  time  past  Emerson  has  been  in  fash- 
ion. It  is  doubtful  whether  an  author  who  is  in 
vogue  has  after  all  so  deep  an  influence  as  one 
who  has  gained  the  concentrated  and  almost 
passionate  devotion  of  a  few  readers.  Ah,  the 
critics  will  say,  this  is  the  conceit  of  the  obscure 
and  unrecognised.  But  I  reply  for  their  comfort 
and  enlightenment  that  this  very  narrow  and 
ardent  following  is  the  cause  of  the  enlargement 
of  the  writer's  circle  and  is  the  way  of  a  slow 
yet  triumphant  progress  to  an  immortality  of 
fame.  It  is  certainly  true  that  Emerson  was  once 

49 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

considered  dangerous  reading ;  that  we  who  fol- 
lowed him  suffered  contempt  from  some,  re- 
proach and  suspicion  from  nearly  all,  and  that 
we  are  now  justified  and  compensated.  It  was 
a  situation  for  which  the  liberality  of  modern 
opinion  can  furnish  no  parallel,  there  being  but 
one  reason  at  present  for  consigning  a  writer  to 
the  Index  Expurgatorius,  namely,  the  taint  of 
flagrant  immorality.  Old  beliefs  have  been  so 
rent  by  a  succession  of  iconoclasts,  have  been 
so  assaulted  by  the  progress  of  scientific  discov- 
ery that  they  have  lost  their  dogmatic  assertive- 
ness  and  are  no  longer  intolerant  of  innovations 
in  thought  and  custom. 

I  have  said  that  readers  of  poetry  were  especial- 
ly prepared  for  welcoming  Emerson's  writings, 
the  earliest  of  which  were  in  prose.  Poetry 
emancipates  young  men  from  their  inward 
and  outward  limitations;  it  opens  to  them  an 
ideal  world  and  attaches  them  to  truth  and 
beauty.  More  than  this,  it  quickens  the  latent 
50 


Emerson's  Influence  on.  Young  Men 

intellectual  life  by  putting  into  choice  phrase 
and  melodious  sound  much  which  they  imagine 
themselves  to  have  felt,  thought  and  already 
lived  through.  It  certifies  and  establishes 
a  relation  between  their  own  incipient  con- 
sciousness and  that  of  the  matured  mind,  and 
lays  the  foundations  of  culture.  Emerson's 
prose  is  much  like  poetry ;  it  wants  but  the  wide 
margins  and  capital  letters.  It  has  all  the  sur- 
prises of  good  verse;  it  is  rhythmical,  episodical, 
sometimes  austere,  again  homely  or  graceful 
and  nearly  always  suggestive.  He  is  thinking 
over  what  you  have  thought ;  such  is  his  insinu- 
ating, flattering  address.  He  seems  to  whisper 
'  I  am  merely  the  organ;  the  idea  is  yours.' 
The  temptation  then  was  great  among  young 
men  to  try  to  find  expression  for  themselves ; 
it  turned  out  to  be  merely  repetition  for  the 
time;  not  only  the  thought  but  the  language 
was  unapproachable.  The  trade-mark  could 
not  be  erased  and  another  substituted.  How- 
si 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

ever,  Mr.  Lowell  sufficiently  satirised  the  imita- 
tors of  Emerson.  It  is  curious  to  remember  now 
that  Emerson  himself  was  arraigned  for  an  imi- 
tative style  and  even  for  borrowing  his  ideas. 
But  who  has  not  been  ?  Plato  was ;  and  those  who 
have  not  been  are  not  remembered.  "  The 
greatest  genius  is  the  most  indebted  man." 
An  aptitude  for  assimilation  is  one  form  of 
genius,  often  mistaken  for  imitation  and  plagiar- 
ism by  those  who  forget  that  there  is  and  can  be 
no  more  material  than  there  ever  was  and  that 
art  alone  endures : 

"  The  bust  outlasts  the  throne, 
The  coin  Tiberius." 

Emerson's  poetry  was  more  difficult  to  imitate 
than  his  prose ;  yet  they  are  so  essentially  alike 
in  tone  and  thought  that  whoever  admires  one 
will  be  apt  to  appreciate  the  other.  It  is  safe 
to  say  that  nearly  all  the  young  men  who  took 
Emerson  for  a  master,  themselves  either  wrote 
or  soon  began  to  write  poetry.  Here  a  man 
52 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

finds  his  true  level ;  he  may  be  equal  to  intelli- 
gent reading  and  complete  appreciation  of  poetry, 
but  when  he  attempts  to  produce  it  he  may 
find  himself  truly  empty.  He  discovers  that 
his  effort  no  more  resembles  the  self  which 
seemed  to  be  actively  present  when  he  was  read- 
ing the  work  of  the  creative  imagination  than 
letters  formed  with  his  left  hand  resemble  his 
most  careless  right-handed  autograph.  This 
also  was  a  discipline  for  which  we  were  much 
indebted  to  Emerson.  Many  paths  must  be  tried 
and  many  must  be  abandoned  ere  one  finds  him- 
self. Some  of  the  Emersonian  disciples  have 
struggled  on  with  the  Muse  and  have  added  to 
the  music  of  the  world;  most  became  silent 
when  they  entered  into  active  life. 

His  verse  rarely  touches  the  common  elements 
of  the  poetic  domain;  it  has  little  warmth,  no 
sensuousness,  no  passion ;  but  it  does  have 
wisdom,  reflection,  beautiful  perceptions,  clear, 
chaste  and  often  perfect  expression,  stanzas  and 

53 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

lines  that  cling  in  the  memory  with  the  sweetest 
and  best.  When  I  say  little  warmth  I  mean  in 
comparison  with  the  more  popular  orders  of 
poetry  which  celebrate  the  domestic  affections, 
sufferings  and  joys,  the  nursery,  the  grave,  the 
raptures  of  lovers  with  the  attendant  tragedy 
and  comedy  of  passion.  But  I  am  reminded  by 
a  friend,  and  a  more  competent  judge  than  my- 
self, that  Emerson's  poems  have  "sun-heat." 
That  description  pleases  me  more  than  my  own, 
and  every  reader  will  be  able  to  compute  for 
himself  the  distinctions  between  "sun-heat" 
and  its  innumerable  substitutes.  His  poems 
repeat  a  great  deal  that  is  in  the  Essays  in  an- 
other form.  Emerson's  taste  for  the  poetry  of 
other  poets  was  just  a  trifle  peculiar;  he  loved 
what  we  all  love  and  a  little  beside.  I  believe 
he  was  fond  of  some  books  of  poetry  for  other 
things  than  their  poetry.  One  good  word  some- 
times was  sufficient  to  attract  him.  He  gave  a 
generous  welcome  to  everything  which  called 
54 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

itself  verse.  This  indeed  was  his  noblest  intel- 
lectual trait,  his  magnanimous  recognition  of  the 
work  of  others  and  his  open,  liberal  praise  and 
faith  in  it.  And  I  think  no  one  ever  came  into 
personal  contact  with  him  without  a  new  or 
renewed  confidence  in  his  own  possibilities. 

In  his  selection  of  poetry  entitled  "  Parnas- 
sus ' '  there  seems  on  a  cursory  glance  nothing 
very  distinctive;  but  reading  more  carefully 
one  finds  here  and  there  the  strangest  and  most 
unexpected  evidences  of  his  poetical  proclivities. 
I  recall  an  epigram  on  this  feature  of  the 
collection : 

"  Some  bards  are  here  and  some  are  not, 

Either  unknown  or  else  forgot ; 

And  some  are  here  elsewhere  unknown 

Save  to  themselves  and  Emerson. 

But  with  the  immortals  do  not  class  us 
For  an  idle  hour  on  Mount  Parnassus." 

The  books  a  man  likes  are  of  a  piece  with 
his  general  sympathies.  Emerson  was  a  wide, 
miscellaneous  reader  and  had  an  eagle  eye  for 

55 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

what  pleased  him  and  made  it  his  own.  His 
quotations  are  as  striking  as  the  text.  When 
was  a  line  of  poetry  hitherto  almost  unknown 
more  aptly  chosen  and  set  in  such  royal  position 
as  that  one  which  closes  the  Essay  on  Montaigne  ? 

"  If  my  bark  sink  'tis  to  another  sea." 
It  has  been  quoted  a  hundred  times  since,  not 
once  before ;  I  have  seen  it  used  even  as  a  prose 
sentence.  His  quotations  incited  one  to  good 
reading  since  they  could  only  be  duplicated  in 
the  best  books  of  all  ages  and  countries.  Com- 
ing to  them  you  found  that  Emerson  had  often 
appropriated  the  only  gem.  Since  both  he  and 
Thoreau  found  close  at  hand  much  that  was  ad- 
mirable, the  great  in  the  little,  the  universe  in 
the  Concord  microcosm,  it  became  the  fashion 
among  the  Transcendentalists  to  hunt  for  the 
obscure  and  unrecognised,  and  to  proclaim  a  dis- 
covery. I  know  not  how  many  great  but  un- 
known geniuses  arrived  and  departed  each  year 
at  Concord.  Young  men  came  from  all  parts  of 
56 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

the  world  and  those  who  could  not  come  wrote ! 
We  who  were  nearer  made  frequent  pilgrim- 
ages alone  or  in  companies.  He  received  us 
each  and  all  with  his  unfailing  suavity  and 
deference.  His  manner  toward  young  men  was 
wonderfully  flattering ;  it  was  a  manner  I  know 
no  word  for  but  expectancy;  as  if  the  world- 
problem  was  now  finally  to  be  solved  and  we 
were  the  beardless  GEdipuses  for  whom  he  had 
been  faithfully  waiting.  Bursting  with  things 
we  had  locked  up  in  our  bosoms  and  which  we 
thought  it  would  be  so  easy  to  say,  silence  and 
vacuity  benumbed  us  on  arriving  in  the  presence 
of  the  poet  and  prophet.  His  magnanimous 
spirit  soothed  and  reassured  us ;  and  to  the  little 
we  brought  he  added  a  full  store,  inserting, 
as  I  have  said,  a  silver  cup  in  our  coarse  sacks 
of  common  grain,  so  that  we  returned  to  our 
brethren  with  gladness  and  praise.  Yet  what 
disappointments  he  must  have  suffered.  What 
trials  of  patience  and  hospitality.  What  self- 
57 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

restraints  in  the  visits  of  friendly  though  fatal 
"  devastators  of  the  day."  l 

"  To  try  our  valor  fortune  sends  a  foe; 
To  try  our  equanimity  a  friend." 

He  bore  all  with  a  gentle  serenity  and  doubt- 
less extracted  from  fools  and  bores  some  wise  or 
witty  thought.  The  nearest  he  ever  came  to 
dismissing  a  visitor  was  when  a  strenuous  Mil- 
lerite  called  and  attempted  to  win  Emerson  to 
his  belief.  Urging  that  the  world  was  surely 
about  to  come  to  an  end,  Emerson  replied, 
' '  Well,  let  it  go ;  we  can  get  on  just  as  well 
without  it." 

Yes,  he  could  do  very  well  without  it  and 
must  often  have  done  so.  At  death  he  entered 
upon  no  uncertain  experiment.  To  our  ques- 
tion, what  shall  we  do  without  him?  let  himself 
answer:  "  Great  men  exist  that  there  may  be 
greater  men." 

1  He  once  protested  against  an  introduction  saying,  "  Whom 
God  hath  put  asunder  let  no  man  >oin  together." 

58 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

I  have  always  wished  to  explain  the  influence 
of  Emerson  on  the  young  men  of  my  time ;  and 
since  his  active  life  covered  the  period  which 
was  without  dispute  an  intellectual,  political  and 
religious  crisis  I  may  be  permitted  to  include  in 
it  some  account  of  the  attitude  and  experiences 
of  my  youthful  contemporaries,  too  immature  for 
actual  participation  in  affairs  or  the  expression 
of  themselves  in  writing.  They  were  in  the 
plastic  stage,  tormented  by  spirits  of  discon- 
tent and  fascinated  by  visions  of  high  ideals  of 
life.  They  were  like  a  flock  of  birds  which  a 
gun  has  startled  from  an  old  haunt  and  who 
hover  uncertain,  perplexed  where  next  to  alight. 
I  was  myself  one  of  such  a  flock  and  I  remember 
well  the  gun  and  the  flash  which  frightened  us 
and  scattered  us,  some  to  Emerson,  some  to 
Theodore  Parker,  others  to  Garrison  and  Fou- 
rier; while  many,  perhaps  most,  returned  in  a 
little  while  to  their  former  associations ;  -yet  who 
can  doubt  never  to  be  quite  what  they  were 
59 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

before.  A  few  reacted  so  violently  as  to  entrench 
themselves  only  more  firmly  in  the  absolutism 
and  finality  of  the  existing  institutions  —  the 
Bible  as  interpreted  by  the  doctors  of  theology ; 
the  Constitution  as  expounded  by  Webster  and 
Taney  and  Calhoun,  and  they  reasserted  the 
claims  of  the  literature  of  the  last  two  centuries. 
The  clocks  of  the  churches  had  run  down. 
They  no  longer  struck  the  present  hour;  the 
hands  were  fixed  motionless  on  time  past  and 
spent.  We  wended  our  way  to  the  Sunday  serv- 
ice full  of  doubts  and  returned  more  and  more 
confirmed  in  them.  Its  devil,  its  hell,  its  Jews 
were  the  constant  parable  of  our  own  sinful  na- 
tures ;  and  out  of  this  indiscriminate  indictment 
but  one  single  path  was  shown  from  the  fall  of 
man  to  his  salvation.  Ever  the  path  of  salva- 
tion for  man  is  narrow,  and  it  is  a  lone  and  soli- 
tary one.  There  is  no  crowd  there,  driven  by 
fears  or  promises  and  marshalled  by  banners 
with  a  single  inscription  — '  this  world  or  the 
60 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

other. '  I  remember  the  weight  of  human  de- 
pravity was  summed  up  in  that  vague  term  so 
constantly  on  the  lips  of  preachers,  '  the  world.' 
Listening  to  them  I  associated  it  with  something 
monstrous,  forbidden  and  as  fearful  as  the  dark- 
ness and  hobgoblins  are  to  childhood.  As  the 
concrete  is  ever  the  characteristic  of  childish 
imagination,  I  at  first  supposed  it  was  some 
place  beyond  the  Mendon  Hills,  which  then 
bounded  my  horizon.  Had  the  preacher  been 
there?  How  did  he  dare?  Had  it  any  real 
existence,  this  '  world  '  of  the  pulpit  ?  It  was 
painted  in  deepest  colors  and  so  overdrawn  that 
like  Milton's  Satan  I  felt  more  interest  in  it  than 
in  the  saints  and  their  heaven.  I  had  a  great 
curiosity,  inspired  by  the  emphasis  on  the  word 
and  its  all  too  attractive  description,  to  see  it 
for  myself.  As  a  seeker  after  this  glittering, 
seductive  iniquity  for  many  years  I  have  never 
been  able  to  find  it  in  that  absolute  and  pure 
estate  postulated.  Such  of  its  forbidden  fruit 

61 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

as  I  have  plucked  I  have  found  tolerably  sweet 
and  wholesome  and  but  little  more  than  a  con- 
venient figure  of  speech  for  the  exhorter. 

Emerson  had  walked  out  of  church  with  the 
utmost  gentleness  and  deference  and  established 
his  tabernacle  by  the  Concord  wayside.  There 
without  noise  or  violence  he  continued  to  preach 
the  word  which  liberated  me  and  my  contem- 
poraries from  our  spiritual  bondage  and  resolved 
our  negations  into  affirmations.  For  the  faith 
that  was  in  us  we  employed  no  logic ;  we  made 
when  necessary  a  new  affirmation.  Thus  with- 
out revolution  or  turmoil  a  force  came  into  the 
world  which  ere  it  was  aware  had  undermined 
the  ancient  New  England  error.  There  was  a 
little  controversy,  and  those  who  kept  the  shew- 
bread  of  Unitarianism  at  Cambridge,  were  at 
first  startled  into  an  exclamation  which  sounded 
like  '  atheism ;  '  but  it  subsided  slowly  and  it  is 
now  a  long  time  silent.  Atheism  was  the  first 
alarm  sounded  and  as  usual  came  from  the  seats 
62 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

of  learning  —  those  seats  where  men  sit  too  long 
and  softly.  This  fearful  word  was  next  sof- 
tened into  pantheism,  then  to  German  mysticism, 
Neo-Platonism,  and  many  other  epithets  were 
experimented  with  by  clerical  and  literary  re- 
viewers, until  it  was  finally  mellowed  into 
Transcendentalism,  where  their  bewildered  pens 
found  rest.  The  Unitarian  clergy  were  and 
have  always  been  a  company  of  cultivated 
men,  rather  independent  thinkers,  and  already 
without  the  pale  of  canonical  churches,  it  was 
easy  for  them  to  take  a  forward  step.  One 
by  one  they  and  their  followers  accepted  Em- 
erson as  the  prophet  of  a  new  spirit  in  reli- 
gion ;  prophet  also  of  a  new  insight  into  nature, 
into  history,  into  conduct  and  the  poet  of  the 
ideal  in  all  human  relations  and  activities. 
Whether  the  Emersonian  insights  and  ideals 
were  altogether  new  and  original  is  immaterial. 
From  everlasting  to  everlasting,  truth  and  beau- 
ty exist  the  same.  They  do  become  dull  and 
63 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

trite  by  reiteration  in  a  traditional  language  and 
require  from  time  to  time  a  fresh  statement. 
This  Emerson  gave  us  in  a  rich  and  striking 
form,  unencumbered  by  prolixity,  logic  or.  au- 
thorities. He  took  the  shorter  way  to  men's 
minds  —  the  road  of  the  self -illuminated  "spirit 
speaking  to  the  highest  in  other  selves.  Many 
voices  in  no  long  time  echoed  his  messages  and 
continue  in  these  days  their  response  from  the 
pulpit  and  the  press.  I  meet  his  sentences  or 
verses  as  the  mottoes  of  books,  on  calendars  and 
Farmers'  Almanacs,  in  private,  marginal  anno- 
tations and  especially  in  all  the  strange  assort- 
ment of  publications  of  the  seekers  after  new 
light  in  psychology,  metaphysics,  science  and 
socialism.  On  a  sentence  from  Emerson's  writ- 
ings they  issue  uniformed  and  provisioned  to 
found  a  new  sect  or  school.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  Emerson's  sentences  separated  from  their 
fellows  readily  lend  themselves  to  every  sort 
of  propaganda.  It  is  the  fate  of  all  inspired 
64 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

utterance  founded  on  what  is  deepest  and  most 
universal  in  experience.  But  the  critique  and 
corrective  are  in  other  sentences;  for  Emerson 
never  allows  a  too  literal  application  of  his  orac- 
ular utterances.  Although  he  has  wings  with 
which  to  soar  he  loves  also  to  plant  his  feet  firm- 
ly upon  the  earth.  I  dare  say  it  would  have 
alarmed  him  had  any  body  of  men  attempted  to 
organise  into  civil  or  religious  compact  his  more 
advanced  ideas.  /He  wished  rather  to  see  the 
whole  of  mankind  moved  forward  and  upward 
to  higher  ideals  through  the  integrity  of  the  in- 
dividual and  not  drawn  apart  into  coteries  of  one 
idea.  He  did  not  like  the  responsibilities  of  a 
founder  of  beliefs.  He  would  have  been  the 
first  to  escape  from  his  own  fold,  so  jealous  was 
he  of  his  freedom  of  thought,  the  possibilities 
of  the  morrow  and  the  dangers  of  consistent 
conservatism  when  one  has  joined  or  formed  a 
party  or  creed.  Growth  ends  with  the  birth 
of  creeds.  Advance  is  then  too  often  accounted 
65 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

heresy.  In  his  lifetime,  pilgrims  from  all 
quarters  of  the  earth  sought  him  out,  having 
read  in  his  books  something  of  which  they 
claimed  themselves  to  be  the  discoverers  or 
apostles.  For  this  they  laid  hands  upon  him, 
demanding  sympathy  and  —  a  subscription.  I 
believe  they  usually  got  both,  but  no  more.  He 
remained  Emerson,  not  a  Come-outer,  Sweden- 
borgian,  or  Fourierite.  We  who  were  young 
and  without  crotchets  or  affiliations  went  to  him 
in  quite  another  way  and  with  quite  other  pur- 
poses ;  and  I  am  happy  in  knowing  that  he  liked 
us  better  than  any  other  class  of  visitors,  even 
those  who  were  themselves  famous.2 

It  is  true  that  many  young  men  of  my  time 
had  broken  with  the  churches  of  their  fathers 
and  mothers.  They  had  undergone  the  Sun- 

3 1  think  you  say  rightly  that  he  liked  the  young  pilgrims 
better,  though  youth  includes  many  persons  over  three  score 
and  ten.  But  of  the  young  he  liked  the  young  in  years  best  if 
they  had  bloom,  the  ideal  and  courage. —  Note  by  Edward 
Waldo  Emerson. 

66 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

day-schools,  family  prayers  and  revivals,  yet 
obstinately  remained  unconverted.  They  were 
more  or  less  consciously  seeking  some  other 
way,  very  ignorantly,  blindly  and  helplessly. 
They  were  by  no  means  iconoclasts  or  heretics ; 
yet  they  were  called  bad  names.  It  hurt  a 
little ;  in  some  cases  it  darkened  the  road  to  suc- 
cess and  prosperity.  Quiet  and  independent 
paths  are  always  open  to  him  who  prefers  them 
or  whom  chance  has  forbidden  the  thronged 
thoroughfare.  Nature  which  we  had  always 
loved  and  lived  with  now  became  doubly  dear 
by  Emerson's  celebration  of  its  meanings  and 
symbols.  We  were  more  than  ever  convinced 
that  the  higher  life  could  best  be  cultivated  in 
the  country,  in  retirement,  and  in  humble  occu- 
pations where  it  was  not  absolutely  necessary  to 
cheat  and  be  cheated.  Thus  were  scattered  over 
the  rural  parts  of  New  England,  and  no  doubt 
in  other  portions  of  the  land,  a  few  men  and 
many  women  who  were  and  continue  to  be 
67 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

examples  of  plain  living  and  high  thinking, 
the  impulse  toward  which  came  originally 
through  the  teaching  of  Emerson.  Such  models 
of  domestic  simplicity  united  with  noble  in- 
terests and  purposes  I  have  met  in  the  homes 
of  some  friends,  where  to  abide  a  guest  was  to 
be  in  a  temple  consecrated  to  the  Muses  and 
the  Graces.  In  this  retirement  some  attempted 
to  cultivate  literature,  and  I  venture  the  asser- 
tion that  more  of  it  has  sprung  from  the  im- 
pulse of  that  early  awakening  than  from  any 
other  source. 

Here  are  some  sentences  from  one  of  Emerson's 
earlier  addresses,  "  Man  the  Reformer,"  deliv- 
ered in  1841,  which  illustrate  his  views  and 
which  had  great  influence  in  turning  the  thoughts 
of  his  hearers  and  readers  toward  a  reform  in 
ways  of  living. 

' '  Our  life  as  we  lead  it  is  common  and  mean ; 
some  of  those  offices  and  functions  for  which 
we  were  mainly  created  are  grown  so  rare  in 
68 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

society  that  the  memory  of  them  is  only  kept 
alive  in  old  books  and  in  dim  traditions. 

"  I  will  not  dissemble  my  hope  that  each  per- 
son whom  I  address  has  felt  his  own  call  to  cast 
aside  all  evil  customs,  timidities  and  limitations 
and  to  be  in  his  place  a  free  and  helpful  man. 

"  The  manual  labor  of  society  ought  to  be 
shared  among  all  the  members.  A  man  should 
have  a  farm  or  a  mechanical  craft  for  his  culture. 
We  must  have  a  basis  for  our  higher  accomplish- 
ments, our  delicate  entertainments  of  poetry  and 
philosophy  in  the  work  of  our  hands.  Manual 
labor  is  the  study  of  the  external  world.  The 
advantages  of  riches  remains  with  him  who  pro- 
cured them,  not  with  the  heir.  When  I  go  into 
my  garden  with  a  spade  and  dig  a  bed  I  feel 
such  an  exhilaration  and  health  that  I  discover 
that  I  have  been  defrauding  myself  all  this  time 
in  letting  others  do  for  me  what  I  should  have 
done  with  my  own  hands. 

"  I  do  not  wish  to  overstate  this  doctrine  of 
69 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

labor  or  insist  that  every  man  should  be  a  farm- 
er any  more  than  that  every  man  should  be  a 
lexicographer.  But  the  doctrine  of  the  farm  is 
merely  this,  that  every  man  ought  to  stand  in 
primary  relations  with  the  work  of  the  world, 
ought  to  do  it  himself  and  not  to  suffer  the  acci- 
dents of  his  having  a  purse  in  his  pocket  or  his 
having  been  bred  to  some  dishonorable  and  in- 
jurious craft  to  sever  him  from  those  duties; 
and  for  this  reason  that  labor  is  God's  educa- 
tion. 

' '  I  think  if  a  man  find  in  himself  any  strong 
bias  to  poetry,  to  art,  to  the  contemplative  life, 
drawing  him  to  these  things  with  a  devotion 
incompatible  with  good  husbandry  that  man 
ought  to  reckon  early  with  himself  and  respect- 
ing the  compensations  of  the  universe  ought  to 
ransom  himself  from  the  duties  of  economy  by 
a  certain  rigor  and  privation  in  his  habits.  For 
privileges  so  rare  and  grand  let  him  not  stint  to 
pay  a  great  tax.  Let  him  be  a  cenobite,  a  pau- 
70 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

per,  and  if  need  be  celibate  also.  Let  him  learn 
to  eat  his  meals  standing,  and  to  relish  the  taste 
for  fair  water  and  black  bread.  He  must  live 
in  a  chamber  and  postpone  his  self-indulgence, 
forewarned  and  forearmed  against  that  frequent 
misfortune  of  men  of  genius,  the  taste  for  lux- 
ury. 

"  Why  needs  any  man  be  rich?  Why  must 
he  have  horses,  fine  garments,  handsome  apart- 
ments, access  to  public  houses  and  places  of 
amusement?  Only  for  want  of  thought.  Give 
his  mind  a  new  image  and  he  flees  into  a  solitary 
garden  or  garret  to  enjoy  it,  and  is  richer  with 
that  dream  than  the  fee  of  a  county  could  make 
him. 

"  Let  us  learn  the  meaning  of  economy. 
Economy  is  a  high,  humane  office,  a  sacrament, 
when  its  aim  is  grand ;  when  it  is  the  prudence 
of  simple  tastes,  when  it  is  practised  for  free- 
dom, or  love  or  devotion.  Much  of  the  economy 
which  we  see  in  houses  is  of  base  origin  and  is 
71 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

best  kept  out  of  sight.  Parched  corn  eaten  to- 
day that  I  may  have  roast  fowl  to  my  dinner  on 
Sunday  is  a  baseness;  but  parched  corn  and  a 
house  with  one  apartment  that  I  may  be  free  of 
all  perturbations,  that  I  may  be  serene  and  do- 
cile to  what  the  mind  shall  speak  and  girt  and 
road-ready  for  the  lowest  mission  of  knowledge 
is  frugality  for  gods  and  heroes." 

Emerson  may  have  had  a  too  masterful  influ- 
ence at  first  over  these  awakened  souT^'but 
through  it  they  finally  found  their  own  genius 
and  entering  various  paths  with  pen,  with  ledg- 
er, with  sermon,  in  journalism,  in  teaching,  in 
politics  and  law  have  everywhere  uplifted  our 
civilisation  and  given  a  higher  tone  to  public 
opinion.  There  are  idealists  in  the  stock  ex- 
change and  on  lonely  New  England  farms  whose 
pedigree  can  be  traced  to  Concord. 

Wisdom  it  is  said  is  good  with  an  inheritance 
and  some  men  begin  with  the  latter  for  their  first 
enterprise.  How  to  interpose  in  everyday  affairs 
72 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

the  due  admixture  of  philosophy,  some  ambro- 
sial salad  with  common  bread  and  meat,  is  the 
problem  of  life.  He  who  keeps  in  mind  the 
precepts,  and  I  may  add,  the  practice  of  Emer- 
son, has  some  helps  to  that  end.  It  is  well  to 
have  been  shown  that  while  involved  in  the  petty 
as  in  the  most  imperial  employments  of  this  life 
the  soul  can  dwell  apart.  He  is  fortunate  who 
can  do  this ;  who  does  not  need  to  separate  him- 
self from  the  world  to  be  no  part  of  its  triviali- 
ties and  its  boasted  realities. 

Here  I  must  record  a  sorrowful  fact  —  the 
dilemma  in  which  I  and  many  of  my  compan- 
ions who  wished  to  follow  the  Emersonian  ideas 
found  ourselves  when  it  was  necessary  to  choose 
some  definite  career  in  life.  It  was  not  the 
Choice  of  Hercules,  the  absolute  good  or  evil, 
but  one^  of  subtle  and  over-refined  discrimina- 
tions. We  had  learned  only  half  of  our  lesson 
and  bewildered  by  the  current  rejection  of 
Emerson  as  a  guide  and  obstructed  on  every 

73 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

hand  by  the  stiff  conservatism  of  the  times  in 
religion,  literature  and  politics  there  seemed  to 
be  no  place  for  us.  The  half-digested  lesson 
therefore  impelled  us  to  the  thought  of  separa- 
tion and  retirement.  It  would  be  easy  we 
dreamed  to  follow  ideals  in  solitude  or  in  a  spe- 
cially selected,  congenial  society.  We  could  at 
least  work  with  our  hands,  dividing  the  day  be- 
tween labor  and  thought,  and  show  the  world 
the  uselessness  of  church  and  state  and  riches. 
From  these  Arcadias  and  Utopias  we  were  speed- 
ily driven,  and  compelled  by  the  usual  neces- 
sities of  life,  we  drifted  back  into  the  common 
employments  and  conditions  of  our  fellows  and 
learned  at  length  the  other  half  of  our  wise  les- 
son, namely,  to  live  out  the  ideal  amid  our  own 
affairs,  however  humble,  and  with  the  brethren 
of  the  common  lot.  I  for  one  have  been  well 
satisfied  to  live  without  the  American  ambitions, 
in  small,  rustic  communities,  laboring  sometimes 
with  my  hands  and  again  with  my  pen  in  friend- 
74 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

ly  obscurity.  The  voices  and  intimations  of 
nature  are  not  absent  from  such  retreats,  where 
also  the  records  of  the  great  spirits  of  literature 
can  be  gathered  upon  a  few  shelves ;  nor  are  the 
affairs  of  the  little  community  altogether  with- 
out interest,  which  once  a  year  are  concentrated 
in  that  impressive  public  function,  the  Town 
Meeting.3  For  this  latter  I  have  the  greatest 
respect  as  the  oldest  and  chiefest  palladium  of 
civilisation  founded  on  freedom.  There  and 
there  alone  the  citizen  is  a  recognisable  unit; 
elsewhere,  mostly  a  cipher.  One  of  the  best  les- 
sons I  have  learned  from  Emerson,  and  others 
before  me  have  made  the  same  confession,  is  to 
be  faithful  over  a  few  things,  beginning  first 
with  self.  If  more  things  do  not  follow  it  is  no 
affair  of  ours.  There  is  nothing  so  alluring  to 

3  My  Father  delighted  in  town  meetings ;  sat  there  humbly 
as  an  admiring  learner,  while  the  farmer,  the  shoemaker  and 
the  squire  made  all  that  he  delighted  to  read  of  Demosthenes, 
of  Cato,  of  Burke,  as  true  in  Concord  as  in  ancient  cities.  Espe- 
cially was  he  pleased  if  he  could  carry  in  an  Englishman  to 
see. —  E.  W.  Emerson  in  note  to  the  writer. 

75 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

most  men  as  power  and  responsibility,  but  the 
ways  to  them  are  devious  and  largely  in  the 
hands  of  fortune.  The  slave  is  contented  when 
unaware  of  his  chains ;  the  free  man  in  knowing 
his  limits.  A  small  stage  for  small  men;  but 
life  can  be  well  lived  even  here,  and  for  the 
greater  — 

' '  I  think  not  much  of  that  or  the  less : 
I  hear  the  roll  of  the  ages." 

It  was  the  same  with  the  state  and  its  tenden- 
cies as  with  the  church.  The  bonds  of  tradition 
and  an  ancient  superstition  held  fast  the  various 
religious  orders  of  men.  Slavery  had  paralysed 
the  moral  sense  of  the  state.  The  mutterings 
of  strife  were  in  the  air,  confined  as  yet  to  a  few 
angry  remonstrants  against  the  apparent  apathy 
of  the  North.  It  was  in  the  North  dangerous  to 
life  and  property  to  speak  publicly  against  slav- 
ery;  in  the  South  there  were  the  tar-pot,  the  rifle 
and  the  jail  on  suspicion  of  Abolitionism.  But 
on  this  subject  there  is  abundant  history.  I 
76 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

wish  to  confine  myself  to  the  attitude  of  the  hand- 
ful of  young  men  who  through  the  influence  of 
Emerson  had  become  emancipated  from  the  con- 
servatism, the  Whiggery  and  the  dogmas  of  the 
times,  who  with  the  impetuosity  of  youth  rushed 
into  the  other  extreme  of  fanaticism,  declaring 
war  on  their  own  account  some  years  before  Fort 
Sumter  was  fired  upon.  At  the  Phillips  Academy, 
Andover,  in  1853-54,  among  two  hundred  stu- 
dents there  were  only  three  of  known  anti-slavery 
sentiments.  There  Prof.  Moses  Stuart  had 
shown  the  Bible  authority  for  slavery;  and 
Daniel  Webster  was  the  god  of  student  idolatry. 
We  three  however  stood  fast  by  our  colors  in 
many  a  passionate  argument  in  dormitory  and 
campus;  and  when  Anthony  Burns  was  about 
to  be  returned  to  his  chains  from  a  Boston 
Court  of  Justice,  we  were  on  the  point  of  march- 
ing our  army  of  three  to  the  rescue ;  but  alas, 
we  had  not  a  single  gun.  We  consoled  our- 
selves with  composing  speeches  to  be  delivered 
77 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

for  the  inspiration  of  the  rescuing  mob.  One  of 
these  I  well  remember,  stuffed  with  apostrophes 
to  the  goddess  of  liberty  and  recondite  classical 
allusions.  What  a  spectacle  to  gods  and  men 
that  might  have  been  if  delivered  as  intended 
by  the  beardless  stripling  from  the  topmost  step 
of  the  Boston  Court  House,  adding  that  ridicu- 
lous element  which  sometimes  makes  tragedy 
more  tragic.  We  were  intensely  serious  and  in 
earnest.  However  we  remained  in  our  cham- 
bers and  I  dare  say  found  a  new  vigor  and  point 
in  Cicero's  Orations  from  the  tremendous  con- 
vulsion in  our  own  bosoms.  We  studied  now 
with  a  sort  of  fury  and  went  about  with  the  lean 
and  hungry  look  of  Cassius.  In  a  spirit  of  ven- 
geance we  felt  called  upon  to  put  our  pro-slav- 
ery classmates  at  the  foot  of  the  class  if  we  could 
punish  them  in  no  other  way ;  and  we  succeeded 
—  a  scholastic  and  pedantic  justice,  which  helped 
to  cool  our  blood  and  which  delights  me  to  re- 
member and  record.  We  made  it  most  uncom- 
78 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

fortable  for  the  little  downy-bearded  friends  of 
the  slaveholders  at  recitation,  where  we  took 
especial  pains  to  emphasize  every  liberal  Cicero- 
nian sentiment  and  at  the  commons-table  with 
gibe  and  satire  we  gave  them  no  peace.  We  had 
all  the  fine  sentiments  concerning  freedom  at  our 
tongues'  ends,  as  well  as  all  the  pathetic  stories 
of  the  cruelties  of  African  slavery.  It  was  the 
custom  of  one  or  other  of  the  commons  club 
officers  to  preside  at  the  table  and  either  to  say 
grace  himself  or  to  call  upon  some  other  member. 
It  happened  on  a  day  that  one  of  the  proscribed 
three  who  was  not  religiously  inclined,  presided 
and  asked  the  blessing.  He  began,  "  O  Lord, 
thou  knowest  the  contented  slave  is  a  degraded 
man  "  — what  farther  he  intended  to  say  I  know 
not ;  there  was  a  clatter  of  knives  and  forks  and 
his  grace  came  to  a  sudden  ending.  Silence  and 
gloom  overspread  us  during  the  remainder  of 
breakfast  and  everybody  felt  ugly  and  ready  for 
a  fight.  Thereafter  only  church  members,  that 
79 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

is,  those  of  the  pro-slavery  set,  were  allowed  to 
say  grace. 

In  a  few  years  more  our  numbers  had  sud- 
denly and  immensely  increased.  To  hold  anti- 
slavery  sentiments  was  no  longer  to  be  a  marked 
man.  Sumner  had  been  struck  down  in  the 
United  States  Senate  by  Preston  Brooks,  of 
South  Carolina.  We  felt  it  was  not  a  blow 
aimed  at  one  man  by  another  but  by  one-half  the 
nation  against  the  other  half.  The  South  hurled 
the  bludgeon,  the  North  received  the  blow.  As 
early  as  1 844  Emerson  had  very  clearly  announced 
his  views  on  slavery ;  but  I  doubt  if  from  the 
first  he  had  held  any  other.  It  was  not  in  his 
nature  to  be  otherwise  than  a  lover  of  human 
freedom.4 

In  1856,  after  the  attack  upon  Sumner,  he 
delivered  a  short  but  impressive  speech  at  an 

4  One  of  the  finest  pieces  of  character  in  my  Father's  life 
seems  to  me  his  entering  the  lists  with  the  black  giant  knight 
Webster,  then  the  darling  of  the  country,  in  the  Free  Soil  cam- 
paign of  1856. —  E.  W.  Emerson  in  note  to  the  writer. 

80 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

indignation  meeting  of  his  fellow  citizens  in 
Concord.  Then  followed  the  great  reception 
and  procession  in  Boston  in  honor  of  Stunner 
upon  his  recovery  and  return  to  his  home.  The 
procession  was  led  by  the  venerable  Josiah  Quin- 
cy.  My  companions  and  I  were  not  far  behind 
on  foot  carrying  good,  heavy  walking  sticks,  not 
much  unlike  clubs,  which  we  brandished  about 
in  defiance  of  an  enemy  as  yet  unchallenged. 
Our  blood  was  up,  our  tongues  wildly  loosened, 
although  there  were  none  present  to  engage  in 
discussion  with  us.  They  were  converted  or 
dumb.  Even  Andover,  Cambridge  and  other 
seats  of  learning  that  had  held  the  Biblical  and 
Constitutional  briefs  for  slavery  drew  back  in 
fright  and  repentance. 

In  1859,  Jonn  Brown  was  hung.  No  man  or 
party  could  have  been  said  at  that  time  to  lead 
the  opinion  of  the  North.  It  was  all  but  unan- 
imous. The  trial  of  Captain  Brown  aroused 
more  antagonism  against  the  South  than  years 
81 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

of  anti-slavery  agitation  had  been  able  to  pro- 
duce. His  speech  on  that  occasion  became  a 
rallying  cry,  bringing  into  prominence  once 
more  the  Scriptural  teachings  concerning  self- 
sacrifice  and  the  brotherhood  of  man ;  and  again 
we  beheld  the  penalty  of  such  words  expiated 
upon  a  Virginia  scaffold.  During  this  stormy 
time  Emerson  appeared  on  the  side  of  human- 
ity. He  made  two  addresses  on  Captain  Brown 
which  are  among  his  collected  writings  and  they 
are  the  most  impassioned  words  he  ever  deliv- 
ered. 

We  younger  men  followed  his  lead  with  still 
greater  ardor.  We  were  for  action.  We  wanted 
to  rescue  John  Brown  and  offered  our  services  for 
that  purpose  to  certain  persons  whom  we  pri- 
vately heard  were  ready  to  lead  us.  The  force 
was  to  consist  of  some  three  thousand  picked 
men  who  were  to  rendezvous  separately  at  Har- 
per's Ferry.  More  prudent  counsels  prevailed 
and  we  were,  left  to  nurse  our  wrath  as  best  we 
82 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

could.  The  time  soon  came  when  there  was 
ample  scope  for  that  wrath  in  a  practicable  direc 
tion.  The  flower  of  New  England  youth  went 
to  the  war  and  gave  their  lives  for  their  faith. 
For  four  years  they  continued  to  fall  on  battle- 
field and  in  hospital.  Those  years  lost  their 
spring  and  their  shadow  still  darkens  and  delays 
it.  But  war  was  better  than  peace  at  the  price 
asked ;  as  Emerson  said  at  its  outbreak  ' '  Some- 
times gunpowder  smells  good."  If  it  left  the 
plough  in  the  furrow,  it  also  broke  up  yardsticks 
and  consumed  selfishness  in  a  flash ;  overthrew 
mouldy  conventions  and  made  heroes  out  of  pale 
students  and  dapper  clerks. 

For  all  this  Emerson's  lectures,  conversations 
and  published  writings  had  helped  to  blazon  the 
way.  Young  men  under  his  influence  were  pre- 
pared for  any  enterprise  that  would  bring  in  a 
better  day.  They  took  sides  with  the  ideal 
against  the  prevalent  opinions,  customs  and  man- 
ners and  often  at  the  sacrifice  of  worldly  pros- 
83 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

perity.  They  sometimes  carried  individualism  to 
excess  and  became  recluse  or  eccentric.  Yet  to 
sum  up,  there  has  been  no  one  man  in  our  land 
who  has  exerted  so  powerful  an  influence  for 
spiritual,  moral  and  intellectual  advancement  as 
Emerson. 

As  a  whole  his  ideas  fortunately  cannot  be 
formulated  into  a  philosophy  or  creed  unless  in- 
deed his  constant  tropes  be  taken  literally,  and  it  is 
too  late  for  that ;  we  have  just  escaped  the  long 
reign  of  literalism  and  shall  not  soon  put  our  necks 
under  the  yoke  of  Asiatic  symbols.  Yet  Em- 
erson's views,  ideal  and  impossible  as  they  may 
seem  to  be,  will  serve  a  man  very  well  when  any  of 
the  real  issues  of  life  are  to  be  met.  There  was 
never  any  question  where  those  ideals  would  take 
Emerson  himself,  nor  on  which  side  he  would 
be  found  when  the  opposing  forces  of  freedom 
and  slavery,  of  progress  and  conservatism  should 
meet  in  peace  or  war.  Some  internal  magnet, 
not  to  be  deflected  by  public  opinion,  majorities, 
84 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

or  popularity,  pointed  to  the  star  of  his  hopes 
and  convictions.  I  am  impressed  with  the  fact 
that  he  never  made  any  mistakes  throughout  his 
career.  He  faced  one  way  and  continued  to  face 
that  way.  He  never  had  to  recant,  to  make  a 
new  start,  to  modify  or  apologise.  Instead,  he 
went  forward  with  an  even,  undeviating  step, 
applying  his  leading  thought,  namely,  the  im- 
portance of  the  individual,  his  identity  with 
nature  and  nature  with  itself,  and  above  all  in- 
sisting on  the  moral  point  of  view  through  every 
subject  that  he  discussed  from  his  first  word  to 
his  last.  He  presents  the  unique  example  of  a 
man  who  continuously  surrendered  himself  to 
the  higher  intuitions  which  he  himself  termed 
the  Over  Soul,  meaning  much  the  same  thing 
as  when  the  herdsman  Amos  wrote  "  God  de- 
clareth  unto  man  what  is  his  thought."  Unlike 
other  moralists,  religious  teachers  and  prophets, 
who  sometimes  lapse  into  complaints  or  denun- 
ciation of  human  frailties,  Emerson  steadfastly 
85 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

fixes  his  eyes  upon  the  highest  and  recognises 
only  the  divine  in  man.  The  result  upon  the 
reader  is  a  wonderful  exaltation  and  desire  to 
realise  that  ideal.  I  would  emphasize  again, 
that  this,  with  the  ever-present  conviction  and 
conclusion  of  all  his  writings,  that  there  is  a 
moral  to  be  drawn  from  the  natural  world  as  well 
as  from  man's,  makes  him  one  of  the  great 
guides  of  life  in  a  society  now  breaking  away  from 
ancient  landmarks  and  filled  with  a  thousand 
discordant  demands  for  reorganisation.  With 
Emerson  on  my  shelves,  I  feel  like  saying  as  the 
doorkeeper  of  a  rich  house  is  instructed  to  say  to 
mendicants  and  peddlars  '  No,  we  have  noth- 
ing to  give  —  we  want  nothing. '  But  Emerson 
brings  with  him  the  best  of  goods  and  company 
and  is  not  so  exclusive  that  he  cannot  bear  the 
presence  of  all  the  immortal  books  ever  written. 
I  chanced  to  read  Emerson  before  I  knew  the 
others  and  have  never  ceased  to  be  thankful  that 
I  had  such  a  guide  and  such  a  light  for  the  great 
86 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

masters  of  thought.  In  the  various  corners 
of  my  seaside  and  mountain  castles  —  castles  of 
one  story  —  Emerson  and  his  mates  stand;  a 
rather  ragged  regiment,  with  some  missing  who 
should  be  there ;  but  I  take  care  that  only  his 
equals  shall  be  invited  to  share  the  shelves 
permanently. 

There  is  one  other  explanation  of  Emerson's 
influence  over  young  men,  somewhat  closer  and 
more  personal,  which  I  must  attempt  to  examine, 
although  I  fear  I  may  not  be  able  to  make  it  as 
clear  as  it  lies  in  my  own  mind,  inasmuch  as  it 
pertains  to  an  inward  crisis  of  life  when  it  is 
passing  from  childhood  to  consciousness,  dim- 
cult  to  be  communicated  or  understood  unless 
already  experienced. 

A  boy's  nature  has  a  healthy  imagination  and 
spontaneous  expression.  It  does  not  calculate 
consequences ;  it  looks  not  backward  nor  much 
into  its  future  and  is  seldom  introspective.  If 
the  boy  declares  he  will  be  a  sailor,  a  grocer  or 
87 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

a  soldier,  it  is  not  because  he  has  discovered  in 
himself  a  special  gift  for  those  occupations,  but 
because  of  the  physical  attractions  with  which 
he  accredits  them.  So  at  first  all  of  his  attrac- 
tions and  repulsions  are  of  an  outward,  objective 
kind.  Nothing  as  yet  has  appealed  to  his  most 
inward  nature  with  its  faint,  undefined  longings. 
Slowly,  or  it  may  be  suddenly,  he  awakens  to 
the  fact  of  his  own  personality,  his  ego,  his 
independent  being ;  and  he  begins  to  note  and 
measure  its  difference  or  sympathy  with  other 
beings.  At  this  critical  period  it  is  of  momentous 
consequence  in  what  direction  he  is  drawn ;  what 
influences,  material  or  spiritual,  are  thrown  into 
the  delicate  balance  of  his  quickening  tenden- 
cies. The  new-found  being,  the  exuberance  of 
youth,  usually  draw  men  into  self-enjoyment, 
into  companionship  and  society  and  ambitions, 
and  the  integrity  of  the  youthful,  just  awakened 
soul  is  dissipated  and  lost.  It  has  had  little 
chance  or  encouragement  to  keep  hold  of  itself. 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

On  the  contrary,  it  is  discouraged ;  uncomfortable 
epithets  await  it,  egotism,  peculiar,  eccentric; 
and  at  one  time  or  another  it  bears  the  name  of 
some  discredited  person  or  institution.  All 
voices  counsel  the  young  man  to  be  like  other 
people ;  to  conform,  to  keep  step  or  to  be  left 
behind. 

At  an  opportune  moment  Emerson  met  the 
dawning  consciousness  and  intelligence — and 
I  doubt  not  continues  to  do  so  —  of  many  young 
men  when  it  must  be  confessed  they  were  sur- 
charged with  the  exaggerations  of  self-impor- 
tance ;  when  their  newly  discovered  powers  were 
seething  in  indeterminate  and  nebulous  disorder. 
He  impressed  the  importance  of  a  man  to  him- 
self and  the  necessity  and  dignity  of  self-reliance. 
Yet  he  directed  this  thought  into  such  lofty 
meanings  and  implications  as  to  effect  the  cure 
of  egotism  and  pretension  and  open  the  percep- 
tions to  the  required  preparation  for  self -trust 
and  the  incoming  of  higher  life.  Moreover,  he 
89 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

held  out  the  hope  and  the  promise  that  only  in 
being  true  to  ourselves  could  we  arrive  at  a  real 
understanding  of  other  men  and  discover  our 
spiritual  affinity  with  men  as  well  as  with  na- 
ture, which  is  best  worth  knowing  of  anything 
in  the  world. 

This  was  a  comfortable  and  elevated  doctrine, ' 
which  so  released  us  from  the  obligation  of  try- 
ing to  know  and  do  the  thing  not  in  harmony 
with  our  own  nature  and  its  aspiration,  so  freed 
us  from  conformity  and  tradition  that  we  eager- 
ly accepted  it.  If  some  were  overzealous  and 
carried  the  idea  beyond  its  true  scope  they  soon 
found  the  limitations,  and  within  them  have 
quietly  worked  out  their  own  destiny.  Wher- 
ever Emerson's  teachings  have  found  welcome 
among  men  they  have  been  followed  with  saner 
living  and  nobler  impulses.  They  have  not 
been  attended  by  organised  institutions  founded 
upon  his  name  and  writings,  but  as  he  wished 
have  entered  into  the  life  and  character  of 
90 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

individuals,  until  the  seed  is  now  sown  broad- 
cast and  bears  fruit  after  its  kind  in  many  se- 
questered as  well  as  public  places.  We  young 
men  of  Emerson's  time,  realising  our  own  being 
and  its  potentialities,  and  yet  uninstructed,  were 
turning  in  all  directions  for  help.  Being  in  a 
certain  sense  delivered  from  the  trammels  of  out- 
worn opinion,  by  our  very  aspirations  which  were 
prophetic  of  a  new  day,  we  found  not  this  help  in 
the  writers  of  the  past.  Although  the  rules  of 
conduct  were  at  hand,  where  was  the  master  who 
could  lead  us  on,  could  fit  himself  to  our  special 
and  personal  need ;  who  could  give  us  faith  in  a 
new  thought  and  courage  to  follow  it  and  capti- 
vate us  by  the  form  of  its  expression  ?  We  found 
him  in  Emerson.  Such  was  the  deep  impression 
he  made,  so  profoundly  did  it  move  his  readers 
that  each  knew  immediately  that  this  message 
was  not  for  himself  alone  and  at  once  was  gener- 
ated that  sympathy  which  prophesies  of  kindred 
spirits  and  in  due  time  is  united  with  them. 
91 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

Thus  it  was  we  came  into  companionship  and 
found  our  own.  We  formed  no  school  but  we 
did  have  a  master.  I  see  Emerson  at  our  head, 
leading  his  extraordinary  collection  of  boys ; 
some  over,  bold  and  opinionated,  others  facile  and 
docile ;  some  with  long  locks,  poetic  and  melan- 
choly ;  others  eager  to  apply  literally  and  at  once 
to  all  existing  evils  the  Emersonian  remedies. 
The  master  has  hard  work  to  keep  us  in  order, 
but  he  allows  a  considerable  latitude  and  idiosyn- 
crasy and  is  overflowing  with  confidence  in  our 
future.  At  last  he  leads  us  smiling  to  the  seat  of 
the  Muses  and  introduces  us  as  worthy  of  the 
palm,  the  oak,  the  olive  or  more  humble  parsley. 

By  permission  of  the  publishers  of  my  Prose 
Idyls  I  add  here  in  conclusion  of  these  Remem- 
brances a  condensed,  symbolic  rendering  of 
them  which  was  written  in  a  moment  of  en- 
thusiasm when  symbols  and  metaphors  seemed 
best  suited  to  shelter  a  personal  experience. 
92 


Emerson's  Influence  on  Young  Men 

THE    MIND    CURER. 

It  would  be  well,  said  the  sage  to  me  one 
day,  to  go  to  college ;  it  would  be  better  to  go 
around  the  world;  but  best  of  all  to  go  look 
everything  thou  meetest  with  in  the  face  and 
ask  of  it  some  question  that  is  in  thine  own 
heart.  If  thou  art  patient,  but  withal  importu- 
nate, then  after  many  years  thou  wilt  find  the 
answers  written  everywhere,  in  a  pre-Cadmean 
alphabet  —  such  were  his  very  words  —  over  all 
waste  places  and  in  the  dust  under  thy  feet. 

Thus  spoke  the  sage,  and  many  other  things  of 
similar  import,  speaking  like  the  Pythoness 
across  the  centuries,  regardless  of  age,  time 
and  circumstances. 

As  I  had  gone  clandestinely,  had  hired  a 
chaise  and  traveled  twenty  miles  at  the  ex- 
pense of  all  my  substance  to  consult  the  oracle, 
I  held  it  to  be  mine  and  I  treasured  it  up  for 
many  years  without  comprehending  it.  Yet 
generally  I  felt  it  like  Socrates'  demon,  re- 

93     ' 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

straining  me  from  many  things.  I  know  not 
how,  but  the  lofty  words  and  their  very  vague- 
ness elevated  the  soul  and  made  it  expectant  of 
wonderful  revelations.  If  I  sought  honor,  ease, 
riches,  love,  something  said,  Seek  them  not! 
and  at  length  they  palled  before  a  life,  not 
mine,  but  whose  existence  I  could  divine. 
As  the  astronomer  knows  of  an  unseen  star  by 
the  perturbations  of  some  other  visible,  so  I 
conjectured  of  a  higher  life  by  the  agitations, 
the  attractions  and  repulsions  of  this. 

Thus  did  the  sage  and  the  master  of  many 
centuries  cure  the  uncertain  adolescent  mind 
ere  yet  it  had  reached  to  follies  or  prevented 
the  entrance  of  wisdom. 


94 


Emerson  as  Essayist 


EMERSON  AS  ESSAYIST 

Emerson's  Essays  are  the  almost  unexampled 
instance  of  matter  prepared  for  oral  delivery  that 
has  a  place  in  permanent  and  vital  literature.  I 
know  of  no  other  compositions  save  his  which 
have  stood  the  test  of  reading  in  private  equally 
well  with  the  effect  of  public  delivery.  How  cold 
and  tame  seem  orations  and  addresses  when  read 
which  were  heard  with  thunders  of  applause. 
This  is  partly  due  to  the  temporary  or  occasion- 
al topic,  or  to  a  charm  of  voice  and  magnetism 
of  the  speaker  which  throw  so  illusive  a  glamour 
over  the  commonplace  that  it  shall  seem  ex- 
traordinary and  the  trivial  important.  Each 
generation  reads  with  disappointment  the  great- 
est efforts  of  oratory  of  a  previous  one. 

Here  lies  the  point  which  distinguished  Emer- 
son from  other  speakers.  His  topics  were  sel- 
dom transient;  they  were  the  eternal  ones  of 
97 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

life;  and  he  had  an  original  manner  of  treat- 
ment and  the  literary  skill  which  have  made 
the  Essays  a  lasting  addition  to  the  instruction 
and  elevation  of  mankind.  Dealing  as  he  did 
with  the  eternal  principles  of  nature,  his  mind 
became  charged  with  a  cosmical  force  which  he 
manifests  in  his  vigorous  style  and  in  the  pro- 
found treatment  of  his  subjects.  He  penetrates 
to  the  essence  of  things  and  lays  bare  the  secret 
operations  of  mind  and  matter.  It  is  obvious 
such  themes  are  neither  gilded  by  the  momentary 
•enthusiasm  accorded  to  the  orator,  nor  can  they 
be  stripped  of  their  imperishable  qualities  when 
read  in  print.  In  their  subsequent  revision  for 
publication  something  perhaps  was  added,  but 
more,  I  think,  was  struck  out.  The  concise  and 
close  statement  was  made  more  concise  and 
close ;  the  inadequate  word  or  phrase  gave  place 
to  the  apposite.  Conjunctions,  adjuncts  and  ad- 
verbs disappeared.  The  metaphor  was  made 
simpler  and  stronger.  The  condensation  was 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

extreme.  I  remember  a  sentence,  if  so  it  may 
be  called,  of  only  two  words,  and  it  is  one  of  the 
most  effective  in  the  essay  in  which  it  occurs. 
He  was  fond  of  the  elision  of  the  letter  i  in  that 
convenient,  Protean  pronoun,  it;  so  that  "  'tis" 
became  a  well  known  earmark  in  the  Emersonian 
academe.  I  do  not  wonder  at  his  cutting  the 
word,  one  could  almost  wish  the  elision  had  been 
complete. 

Emerson  trimmed  and  pared  his  sentences  to 
the  last  limit;  and  he  left  to  the  reader  the 
pleasant  task  of  supplying  joints  and  hinges  and 
of  finding  or  making  mortises  for  his  nicely  artic- 
ulated tenons.  He  uses  a  figure  of  speech 
where  most  writers  would  insert  a  logical  dem- 
onstration,  or  argument  or  entreaty.  As  one 
reads  it  is  equally  convincing  and  a  thousand 
times  more  agreeable ;  but  it  is  hard  to  keep  the 
connections,  especially  where  the  page  sparkles 
with  ^pigrammatic  sentences.  He  is  never  sat- 
isfied unless  he  attaches  the  concrete  to  the  most 
99 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

profound  abstractions;  uniiLJike_JJie-4*eaffi£-x>f 
the  gods  his  visions  and  ideals  are  made  real  by 
some  natural  image,  some  actual  example. 

After  the  lecture  had  been  newly  dressed,  after 
the  excisions,  the  compressions,  the  polish,  the 
file,  something  remained  less  impersonal,  less 
conventionally  literary,  special  and  academic 
than  in  other  English  essays.  I  think  that  I 
can  still  faintly  detect  the  air  of  the  lecture 
room ;  the  upturned  faces,  expecting  the  sentence 
which  should  cut  clean,  sound  to  the  depths, 
soar  to  the  heights,  and  which  never  disap- 
pointed that  expectation.  There  yet  lingers  over 
the  Essays  the  direct  address,  the  hortatory,  the 
call  to  me,  to  you,  which  makes  them  so  excit- 
ing and  so  revolutionary.  He  uses  the  first  per- 
son I  a  great  deal;  and  one  reciprocates  the 
high  compliment  by  believing  himself  alone  ad- 
dressed. It  is  like  a  personal  interview.1 

1  It  is  not  necessary  to  assent  to  everything  he  says  —  but 
all,  even  such  as  I,  can  understand  enough  to  be  moved  to  ador- 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

A  veritable  presence  does  vitalise  Emerson's 
Essays ;  it  is  a  soul  informed  with  thought,  with 
beauty,  with  experience,  observation  and  con- 
viction, speaking  to  the  soul.  It  has  drawn  to 
itself  what  belonged  to  it,  and  cast  out  what  did 
not.  It  dares  to  be  true  to  itself  in  all  subjects 
and  always.  It  is  as  important  to  note  the 
unvarying  attitude  of  Emerson's  mind  as  the  par- 
ticular expression  of  it.  We  do  not  know  what 
he  may  have  to  deliver,  what  surprises  may  be  in 
store  under  any  of  his  rubrics,  but  we  do  know 
that  Emerson  will  be  there.  He  is  so  self -con- 
sistent that  never  a  doubt  interferes  with  our 
certainty  as  to  the  position  he  will  take  on  any 
public  or  moral  or  literary  question.2  We  know 

ation  and  worship  of  the  true,  the  beautiful  and  good.—  Rev. 
Samuel  Ripley  to  Mary  Moody  Emerson  in  1838. 

One  person  observed  she  durst  not  breathe  scarcely  during 
the  whole  lecture.  Yet  some  were  displeased  and  thought  the 
influence  he  exerted  not  good. —  Same  to  same,  1838. 

2  In  praising  a  letter  of  Sterling's  Emerson  said,  "These 
were  opinions  (for  which  he  did  not  care  So  much)  but  the 
tone  was  the  man." 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

that  he  could  not  take  any  other  than  he  does. 
There  never  was  any  writer  so  forbidden  by  his 
own  genius  to  wander  outside  of  its  own  domain. 
He  was  almost  imprisoned  by  it.  In  a  hundred 
subjects  and  digressions  there  is  a  thread  which 
binds  all  and  cannot  be  lost.  He  is  everywhere 
the  same.  Should  a  single  page  of  Emerson  be 
exhumed  from  the  future  ruins  of  modern  libra- 
ries it  would  be  enough  to  identify  him  and 
testify  to  his  genius. 

Is  it  remarkable  then  that  Emerson  who  was 
so  one  in  all  his  work  should  have  been  so  untir- 
ing a  searcher  after  identity  in  the  history  of 
mankind,  both  outward  and  spiritual,  and  in  the 
operations  of  nature  ?  He  pursued  this  identity 
not  perhaps  with  the  philosophical  intent  of 
finding  a  first  cause,  or  principle,  which  ends 
often  in  dogma  and  system ;  but  he  was  pleased, 
like  a  poet,  with  the  oneness  of  things ;  the  cor- 
respondences between  nature  and  man,  between 
matter  and  spirit.  He  saw  symbols,  and  saw 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

them  as  a  never-ending  and  interchangeable 
order.  He  was  not  content  with  seeing  likeness 
in  one  place,  one  time,  or  object,  but  always  and 
everywhere.  He  gave  the  immanent  spirit  per- 
vading nature  and  man  many  names,  the  loftiest 
of  which  was  the  "  Over  Soul."  It  was  his  key 
with  which  he  opened  secret  and  obscure  pas- 
sages to  man  and  nature,  and  revealed  them  the 
same  as  the  known  and  the  familiar.  It  at  once 
commanded  a  larger  thought  and  advanced  his 
hearers  and  readers  into  a  new  life.  .  The  first 
effect  of  it  was  practical ;  that  is,  it  enticed  the 
hearer  or  reader  into  a  desire  for  embodiment. 
I  assert  this  although  aware  that  it  was  an  ideal 
life  which  was  endeavored  to  be  realised ;  a  life 
as  yet  without  institutions  to  assist  and  protect 
it.  The  singular  elevation  of  Emerson's  vision 
enabled  him  to  behold  harmony,  order  and  love ; 
those  in  a  lower  atmosphere  who  could  not 
bear  that  high  light,  by  his  help,  might  yet 
catch  glimpses  of  the  good  and  fair ;  and  here 
103 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

and  there  some  solitary  youth,  attempted  to  con- 
form his  living  and  thinking  to  the  Concord 
oracles.  For  such  youth  Emerson  had  a  great 
tenderness,  a  great  sympathy  and  hope,  believing 
as  he  did  that  ideas  must  realise  themselves  as 
surely  as  the  acorn  becomes  an  oak. 

Emerson  was  an  optimist  because  he  was  first 
an  idealist;  that  is,  he  believed  inj.be  triumrjh_of 
thought  over  the  evil  anr1  brntp  forces  in  the 
world.  He  made  "no  account  of  objections 
which  respect  the  actual  state  of  the  world  at 
the  present  moment."  "  Put  trust  in  ideas  and 
not  in  circumstances."  "  It  is  the  ground  we  do 
not  tread  upon  that  supports  us."  And  I  must 
repeat  here  the  best  saying  of  Emerson  as  illus- 
trative of  his  habitual  irony  toward  all  things  of 
matter-of-fact  and  practical  importance :  ' '  Ex- 
cuse me,"  he  said  to  some  friends  when  called 
away  by  the  appearance  of  a  load  of  wood  in  his 
yard,  "  we  have  to  attend  to  these  matters  just 
as  if  they  were  real." 

104 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

Some  foreign  as  well  as  some  American  crit- 
ics of  Emerson  are  ignorant  of  his  influence 
upon  the  actual  life  of  the  men  and  women  who 
were  reading  him  when  he  was  at  his  prime  and 
they  were  in  the  eager  and  impressionable  stage 
of  youth.  Although  it  is  Matthew  Arnold  who 
has  so  wisely  said  that  poetry  is  a  criticism  of 
life ;  who  also  notes  its  deep  influence  on  read- 
ers of  Wordsworth,  forming  the  intellectual 
tendencies  of  many  other  poets  and  writers  and 
having  a  subtle,  far-reaching  effect  over  litera- 
ture, society  and  even  government;  yet  he 
seems  not  to  be  aware  of  the  similar  facts 
in  regard  to  Emerson's  poetry  and  prose.  They 
are,  it  is  true,  not  so  conspicuous,  but  they  are 
just  as  real.  Perhaps  more  of  the  Emerson- 
ian seed  fell  into  unprepared  ground,  into  a 
younger  civilisation,  a  more  disturbed  genera- 
tion than  in  the  case  of  Wordsworth  and  Car- 
lyle,  and  displayed  itself  in  more  crude  and 
eccentric  forms.  But  his  teaching  must  not  be 
105 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

measured  by  the  foibles  of  some  of  its  followers ; 
every  noble  tree  has  its  parasitic  growths.  A 
tree  that  is  large  and  vigorous  enough  can  sus- 
tain a  good  many.  Time  will  rectify  this. 
Wordsworth's  imitators,  his  weaker  disciples, 
who  thought  simple  themes  and  characters  as 
worthy  of  poetry  as  great  ones  and  yet  were  too 
unskilled  to  treat  them  greatly,  have  fallen  into 
obscurity,  and  only  those  capable  of  holding  aloft 
and  passing  on  the  light  they  have  received,  re- 
main and  are  remembered.  It  has  been  thus 
with  every  great  teacher,  every  original  force ; 
and  so  it  will  be  with  Emerson. 

When  I  consider  Emerson  from  these  points 
of  view  I  am  impatient  of  merely  literary  criti- 
cism of  him.  It  does  not  compass  his  aims,  his 
power  and  his  effect.  There  is  something  in 
these  you  will  not  find  when  you  only  read  Em- 
erson's books  as  literature.  There  is  already 
history  in  them ;  that  is,  what  they  contain  of 
suggestion  and  aspiration  has  been  more  or  less 

106 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

successfully  put  into  the  life  of  this  age.  Wheth- 
er this  will  continue  to  be  their  fortune  is  an 
unimportant  and  also  unanswerable  question. 
In  the  history  of  most  great  men  there  has  been 
at  first  a  personal  following,  a  band  of  disciples 
whose  circle  has  extended  itself  in  a  natural 
manner.  There  happened  to  Emerson  what 
usually  happens  to  all  eminent  moral  or  literary 
leaders ;  something  calling  itself  the  public  be- 
gan to  criticise  and  sneer  at  those  who  were  the 
earliest  and  warmest  of  Emerson's  admirers, 
reproaching  them  with  the  intention  of  appropri- 
ating him  exclusively  to  themselves,  and  with  be- 
ing blinded  by  their  closeness  to  him.  Though 
late  in  discovering  it,  and  in  fact  by  no  other  means 
than  the  observation  of  his  influence  and  fame 
among  a  small  band,  this  public  found  out  that 
there  was  an  Emerson,  a  poet,  essayist  or  philos- 
opher, they  were  not  sure  which.  After  this  dis- 
covery the  next  step  was  in  accordance  with  the 
most  ancient  precedents  — mockery  of  the  follower 
107 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

and  praise  of  the  master.  The  public  took  its 
view  and  mainly  its  expression  from  the  follow- 
er; but  censured  him  as  a  mere  satellite,  from 
whom  they  pretended  they  would  rescue  the  real 
Emerson  and  show  that  he  belonged  to  a  wider 
world  than  the  Concord  or  other  coterie.  This 
was  the  position  of  those  who  slowly  and  grudg- 
ingly magnified  Emerson  in  order  to  belittle 
such  as  had  anticipated  their  discoveries.  '  We 
claim  Emerson  for  a  larger  banquet  than  yours  — 
too  large  for  you;  go  you  to  the  foot  of  the 
table.'  This  is  always  said  by  those  who  come 
late  to  the  feast.  They  accepted  Emerson 
when  he  began  to  be  famous,  not  before ;  and 
they  always  found  it  more  easy  to  satirise  the 
Emersonians  than  to  understand  Emerson. 
This  amused  for  awhile,  and  then  it  passed 
away.  There  are  always  brilliant  wits  who 
know  how  to  present  truth  and  its  opposite  in 
such  close  proximity  that  it  is  impossible  to 
separate  them,  and  only  safe  to  cut  the  whole 

108 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

away  and  build  on  another  and  simpler  founda- 
tion. These  wits  wish  to  be  thought  to  follow 
riobody;  to  stand  as  supreme  critics  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  cosmopolitan  mind.  On  the  con- 
trary they  remind  one  of  rows  of  pins  on  a  paper, 
all  alike,  very  small  heads  and  very  sharp  points. 
There  is  another  class  of  critics  who  endeavor 
without  prejudice  to  estimate  Emerson  as  a 
writer  and  fix  his  place.  Yet  in  forming  their 
estimate  they  do  not  take  into  account  his  influ- 
ence, both  personal  and  literary,  over  his  con- 
temporaries, nor  conceive  how  great  was  the 
spiritual  awakening  caused  by  his  writings.  I 
believe  no  one  could  know  it  who  had  not  di- 
rectly fallen  under  its  immediate  power.  This 
which  makes  Emerson  so  dear  to  some,  also 
renders  it  difficult  for  those  who  are  out  of  sym- 
pathy with  his  teachings  to  find  any  Emerson 
at  all,  any  greatness,  any  power.  Although  not 
a  professedly  religious  teacher,  we  can  only  com- 
pare his  influence  to  that  of  one.  He  seldom 
109 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

enters  upon  any  piece  of  writing  as  a  purely 
intellectual  exercise.  To  follow  him  then  from 
literary  standpoints  is  to  miss  his  message. 
Yet  he  was  literary  in  the  special  sense  of  that 
term ;  he  never  depreciated  the  place  of  the 
intellect,  and  often  upheld  it.  Hejippears,  how- 
ever, to  have  been  very  impatient  of  thejnerelj: 
academic  manner  and  to  have  Subordinated  both 
literary  art  and  intellectual  processes  to  a  spiritual 
vision,  which  was  a  natural  gift  in  him,  his  gen- 
ius_.__  He  makes  way  for  this  always;  his  pen 
falters  and  the  essay  hesitates  when  this  does  not 
command  him.  He  did  not  climb  any  height 
by  the  steps  of  fact  and  argument,  but  he  alighted 
there  on  the  height,  and  descends  by  familiar 
paths,  by  homely  illustration,  proverb,  practical 
applications  to  life,  inverting  as  it  were  the 
usual  order  of  thinking.  Sometimes  he  stays  on 
the  summits,  passing  from  one  to  another,  as  the 
higher  clouds  touch  in  their  flight  only  the  loft- 
iest mountain  peaks.  All  of  Emerson's  intrinsic 
no 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

greatness  and  power  seem  to  me  to  come  from 
the  commanding  place  from  which  he  begins  to 
discuss  every  subject  in  the  Essays.  In  other 
writings,  as  biographies,  annals  and  topics  of 
the  day,  he  measures  men,  nations,  events  and 
reforms  by  lifting  them  to  the  plane  from  whence 
in  his  more  abstract  compositions  he  is  accus- 
tomed to  take  his  flight. 

Emerson's  method,  his  intellectual  or  philo- 
sophical or  spiritual  first  principles  are  to  be 
found  at  large  in  his  writings,  in  the  least  as  in 
the  lengthiest.  To  every  object  in  nature,  to 
life,  the  mind  applies  itself  to  learn  what  it 
means.  This  meaning,  idea  or  cause  is  more 
beautiful  and  of  larger  significance  than  the  par- 
ticular example  of  it/  The  meaning  of  a  flower 
as  drawn  out  in  a  line  or  poem  is  more  impress- 
ive than  the  flower ;  the  source  of  electricity,  if 
we  could  find  it,  would  be  more  wonderful  than 
its  applications.  The  object  too  often  confines 
our  attention  to  itself ;  but  its  idea  has  no  limita- 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

(     tions.     The_ Essays  of  Emerson  are. .a 

\  to  look  into  certain  subjects  singly;  to  give  to 
-X  each  the  whole  mind  and  to  receive  injreturn 
e  whole  truth  of  each.  The  lines,  the  rela- 
tions between  them  you  do  not  get  from  Emer- 
son in  any  capital  generalisation ;  it  is  found  in- 
volved in  the  prevailing  texture  of  every  essay. 
Now  this  involved  generalisation,  never  formal, 
but  a  sort  of  reappearing,  flashing  light,  irregu- 
lar and  always  surprising,  is  the  very  essence  of 
Emerson's  genius.  It  is  a  clear  light  to  some; 
to  others  it  is  not  clear  at  all.  It  is  peculiar,  it 
is  individual.  Drink  deep  or  taste  not  the  Em- 
ersonian Castalia.  -AlLJns  jwork  is  .colored  by 

his  nat.iira1_grpm'ns  -and    ohftrfl^tgr        It  was  novel 

to  us  who  had -received  no  education  for  ..his 
ideag  £>IL_ styje.  The  Essays  have  all  the  quali- 
ties of  new  and  original  thinking  and  therefore 
were  not  immediately  and  originally  acceptable. 
We  have  to  learn  how  to  read,  how  to  accept 
and  use  such  writing.  That  we  have  learned  so 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

rapidly  is  due  to  the  continuity  of  Emerson's 
work;  to  his  frequent  appearance  before  the 
public  in  lyceums  and  reform  organisations ;  to 
the  general  steadiness  of  his  character,  so  that 
in  time  it  became  well  known  for  what  he  stood ; 
due  also  to  his  engaging  manners,  which  sent 
every  one  to  his  books  as  soon  as  he  had  chanced 
to  meet  the  man,  and  where  the  one  soon  inter- 
preted the  other;  these  and  some  ridicule  and 
denunciation  exciting  a  certain  curiosity  to 
know  the  object  of  them,  gave  an  earlier  and 
wider  fame  to  Emerson  than  has  been  usual 
with  writers  who  have  dealt  with  high  themes. 
However,  I  think  there  is  something  in  the 
nature  of  illusion  in  the  common  tradition  that 
great  writers  are  not  recognised  in  their  own 
day.  We  flatter  ourselves  and  measure  the 
beginning  by  the  end.  It  even  makes  us  suspi- 
cious that  no  man  can  enjoy  a  great  fame  in  his 
own  lifetime,  or  immediately,  and  continue  to 
have  it  thereafter. 

113 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

Emerson  found  his  place  very  early  with  a  few 
readers  in  the  United  States,  and  with  here  and 
there  one  in  Europe.  It  is  now  said  by  an 
English  critic  that  Emerson  has  been  accepted 
by  our  generation  as  one  of  its  wise  masters  and 
that  he  does  not  stand  in  need  of  any  interpreta- 
tion, that  he  is  his  own  expositor.  Then  as 
usual  there  follow  fifty  pages  of  exposition. 

It  is  more  than  fifty  years  since  the  Essays 
were  published;  the  first  volume  in  1841,  the 
second  in  1844.  They  contain  what  is  most 
characteristic  of  Emerson  and  what  in  one  form 
or  another  appears  throughout  all  his  subse-" 
quent  publications.  I  think  they  are  more  read 
than  his  other  works,  although  in  the  beginning 
they  had  no  sale  in  comparison  with  his  later 
books.  But  when  people  began  to  read  the 
Conduct  of  Life,  English  Traits,  etc.,  they 
turned  back  to  the  Essays.  Under  whatever 
title  his  separate  prose  works  appear,  essays  fit 
them  best.  Yet  most  of  them  were  prepared  for 
114 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

public  delivery.  Some  profess  to  detect  this  in 
their  style.  I  should  never  discover  it  had  I 
not  heard  some  of  them  and  since  been  unable 
to  forget  the  tones  of  voice,  the  manner  and  the 
total  effect  of  the  delivery.  For  it  certainly  can- 
not be  discovered  by  any  resemblances  to  writ- 
ing that  we  do  know  was  prepared  for  public 
delivery,  which  has  for  its  prevailing  qualities 
nothing  in  the  least  like  the  qualities  of  Emer- 
son's page. 

The  old  lecture  platform  witnessed  every  sort 
of  performance  with  an  impartial  eye.  It  lis- 
tened to  eloquence,  to  nonsense  and  to  thought; 
it  was  not  greatly  moved  by  any;  it  was, 
perhaps,  made  a  little  more  eager  for  the  next 
lecture,  which  might  demolish  the  ideas  of  the 
last.  The  audiences  had  their  favorites,  usually 
the  more  eloquent  speakers.  But  it  is  painful 
to  recall  and  still  more  so  to  read  what  went 
under  the  name  of  eloquence  in  Emerson's  day ; 
that  which  was  selected  for  school-readers, 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

spouted  by  collegians  and  admired  by  every- 
body.8 I  remember  now  with  amusement  the 
blank  and  confounded  looks  of  three  masters 
and  two  hundred  boys  when  on  declamation  day 
I  delivered  the  whole  of  Milton's  Lycidas  as  my 
part  in  the  exercises.  The  boys  winked  and 
screwed  their  faces,  the  masters  shifted  uneasily 
in  their  chairs,  and  I  was  too  chagrined  to  lift 
up  my  head  again  for  a  week.  I  knew  I  had 
committed  a  horrible  sin  against  all  the  gods  of 
oratory,  forensic  and  Fourth  of  July. 

Being  so  admired,  eloquent  writing  was  the 
fashion ;  it  crept  into  poetry.  The  last  genera- 
tion of  American  poets  was  more  often  eloquent 
than  poetic.  The  verses  are  sermon,  oration  or 

3  It  is  remarkable  how  the  love,  he  in  common  with  the 
imaginative  and  thoughtful  students  of  his  college  days  had 
for  eighteenth  century  eloquence,  always  remained,  and  with 
what  delight  in  reminiscence,  often  woefully  disappointed 
when  he  found  the  passage,  he  told  us  of  the  college  eloquence 
of  his  day,  imitating  the  very  tones  of  John  Everitt  and  some 
of  the  southerners  of  his  time. —  E.  W.  Emerson  in  note  to  the 
writer. 

116 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

narrative  with  capital  letters  and  rhymes.  It 
was  a  barbarian  taste,  now  relegated  to  politics. 
Its  last  echo  was  at  the  consecration  of  the  bat- 
tle-field of  Gettysburg,  where  a  specimen  of 
that  kind  of  oratory  was  brought  into  striking 
comparison  with  a  few  words  of  thought  inflamed 
by  the  heart,  and  every  one  who  either  heard  or 
read  them  both  felt  that  the  days  of  the  conven- 
tional oration  had  been  numbered.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  an  intellectual  era  in  our  history. 

As  we  usually  understand  eloquence,  it  re- 
quires an  occasion,  when  bodies  of  men  are 
already  excited  and  feel  eloquently  and  create 
half  the  power  of  the  orator  himself.  You  can- 
not manufacture  this  opportunity;  you  cannot 
arise  before  an  audience  and  excite  the  pre- 
possessions necessary  to  responsive  feeling.  But 
the  moral  nature  in  men  and  in  a  less  degree  the 
intellectual,  are  always  a  prepared  audience.  To 
this  Emerson  addressed  himself;  and  he  at 
length  secured  its  attention.  He  offered  to  it 
117 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

matter  which,  after  having  been  illuminated  by 
his  voice  and  literary  style,  was  of  that  force  and 
beauty  to  instruct  and  delight  as  much  when 
read  as  when  heard.  The  essay  was  as  good  as 
when  it  was  a  lecture ;  and  to  follow  it  one  step 
farther,  it  still  retained  its  characteristics  when 
it  took  the  form  of  poetry;  for  often  Emerson's 
poetry  repeats  his  prose.  Nothing  in  Emerson 
is  more  plain  than  the  unity  of  his  work,  and 
its  similarity  under  whatever  form  or  title. 
What  he  saw  and  so  constantly  reiterated  as  the 
secret  of  creation,  the  relation  of  nature  to  man, 
and  of  man  to  spirit  he  discovered  in  his  own 
being.  Identity  of  being,  under  diversity  of 
form,  was  his  constant  text.  Emerson  is  the 
supreme  analogist  of  modern  or  ancient  times. 
It  is  always  the  same,  whether  sketching  the 
history  of  Concord  or  the  intuitions  of  the  soul. 
If  there  be  any  narrowness  in  his  mind  or  fault 
in  his  expression  it  is  the  repetition  of  this  ma- 
jestic idea.  Yet  how  inevitable,  how  necessary, 

118 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

it  is  that  men  who  are  prophets  of  the  soul,  who 
have  a  vital  message  to  deliver,  should  proclaim 
it  at  all  times,  one  idea,  one  doctrine  in  mani- 
fold forms  and  in  every  shape  that  can  appeal  to 
the  imagination  or  the  intuitions  of  mankind. 

There  was  between  the  essay  and  lecture  little 
to  distinguish  them  save  those  things  which  be- 
longed to  the  physical  presence  of  Emerson.  A 
strong  personality  pervades  the  Essays.  It  pro- 
duces even  yet  something  of  the  effect  of  the 
living  accents.  The  effect  of  both  was  similar ; 
it  was  not  exactly  enthusiasm  which  they  elicited, 
but  an  inward  excitation,  almost  a  tumult  in 
young  and  serious  minds.  They  wished  to 
realise  these  fine  ideas ;  they  looked  into  nature 
with  a  new  eye;  they  retired  more  from  society, 
left  off  going  to  church,  having  experienced 
religion;  and  their  tastes  in  reading  became 
wonderfully  changed.  They  sought  after  books 
that  contained  thought.  At  that  time  most 
young  men  who  wished  to  be  writers  were  form- 
119 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

ing  themselves  upon  the  ' '  icily  regular,  splen- 
didly null  "  periods  of  the  Edinburgh  Review- 
ers. The  style  of  Emerson  was  captivating ;  or 
was  it  style  ?  I  ask  because  some  denied  to  him 
style  and  said  that  to  call  it  so  was  to  forget  all 
precepts  and  precedents.  I  shall  not  enter  into 
this,  a  question  for  the  critics,  since  I  have  already 
taken  the  ground  that  the  Essays  have  a  higher 
quality  than  the  merely  literary.  Something 
there  was  in  the  sentences,  often  in  the  words 
themselves,  which  captivated  the  ear;  but  ex- 
amined more  nearly,  it  was  the  poetic  or  spiritual 
sense  they  conveyed.  Emerson  proceeds  by  a 
series  of  mental  saltations.  The  connecting 
links  of  which  most  writers  are  studious  and 
careful,  he  has  the  appearance  of  neglecting. 
The  construction  is  asyndetic ;  the  sentences  ap- 
proach but  they  do  not  touch.  Commonplace 
and  padding  are  omitted.  One  needs  to  take 
long  breathings  in  reading  the  Essays,  and 
make  a  fresh  start  at  every  new  chapter.  These 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

thoughts  are  precious  pearls  of  translucent,  self- 
contained  light.  Intermediate  ideas  are  left  out. 
—  left  for  the  reader  _to  discover ;  these  are  the 
work  of  the  will,  of  the  pen  guided  by  examples 
and  the  desire  not  only  to  supply  to  men  their 
ideas  but  to  do  all  the  necessary  thinking  about 
them,  draw  all  the  important  deductions  and 
leave  no  passage  unfortified,  in  short,  nothing 
for  the  reader  to  do.  But  Emerson's  view  of 
men  was  that  they  were  wiser- than  they  knew; 
that  it  was  not  necessary  to  feed  them  forever 
on  milk  and  keep  them  in  primer  and  pupilage. 
To  reason,  to  explain,  to  persuade  was  condescen- 
sion, an  implied  superiority.  As  you  appeal  to 
them  such  you  will  find  them.  His  doctrine  of 
intuitions  led  him  to  address  men  as  if  they 
would  respond  intuitively  to  the  truth ;  and  he 
spoke  to  them  always  from  a  lofty  ground.4  No 

4  This  is  the  more  remarkable  when  one  remembers  that 
they  were  first  read  to  audiences  in  country  towns  and  prairie 
settlements  as  well  as  to  half  philistine  audiences  in  cities. 
How  well  it  worked,  this  taking  people  by  their  best  handles, 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

books  take  so  much  for  granted  in  men,  show 
such  ingenuous  confiding  of  inmost  thought  and 
assume  that  they  are  open  to  all  that  is  great  and 
beautiful  as  Emerson's.  It  was  a  magnificent 
compliment;  it  was  the  manner  of  kings  and 
princes  to  each  other.  Where  had  he  learned  it  ? 
In  the  royal  company  of  the  sages  and  saints  of 
all  lands,  and  in  the  heart  of  woman. 

One  woman  at  least,  Mary  Moody  Emerson, 
had  an  immense  influence  over  him  in  the 
formation  of  his  youthful  conduct  and  ideals. 
She  was  a  person  who  had  the  strongest  convic- 
tions and  the  most  courageous  manner  of  ex- 
pressing them ;  she  neither  argued  nor  per- 

I  tried  to  illustrate  in  my  memoir  of  my  Father  by  the  story 
of  Ma'am  Bemis  who  understood  no  word  but  got  the  lesson 
from  the  tone  and  attitude  of  the  man  —  and  wouldn't  miss  a 
lecture.  The  amazement  and  puzzling  of  Carlyle  and  Sterl- 
ing and  others  in  England  as  to  what  kind  of  an  audience 
such  things  could  be  addressed  to  and  find  a  response  is  al- 
ways very  amusing  to  me,  as  is  also  the  question  what  they 
would  have  made  out  of  a  Lowell,  or  Prairie  du  Chien,  or 
Harvard  (Mass.)  audience  if  they  had  been  present. —  E.  W. 
Emerson  in  note  to  the  writer. 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

suaded,  but  affirmed  and  insisted  and  laid  her 
high  commands  upon  her  young  nephew  with 
the  absoluteness  and  confidence  of  an  inspired 
prophetess.  Such  she  was,  in  truth.  And  if  we 
are  thankful  for  the  existence  of  Emerson  we 
must  also  be  grateful  that  he  had  her  for  a  guide 
and  exemplar.  He  has  himself  acknowledged 
his  indebtedness  in  these  words :  "It  was  the 
privilege  of  certain  boys  to  have  this  immeasura- 
bly high  standard  indicated  to  their  childhood; 
a  blessing  which  nothing  else  in  education 
could  supply." 

Here  are  some  of  tke  standards  to  which  he 
refers :  ' '  Scorn  trifles. "  ' '  Lift  your  aims. ' ' 
"  Do  what  you  are  afraid  to  do."  "  Sublimity 
of  character  must  come  from  sublimity  of  mo- 
tive."5 

He  had  anticipated  the  Cathode  ray  and  looked 
into  the  hearts  and  heads  of  men. 

5  See  Emerson's  sketch  of  Miss  Emerson ;  also  the  poem 
"  The  Nun's  Aspiration." 

123 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

He  modestly  claimed  only  to  have  ' '  overheard 
things ' '  in  the  woods  and  fields.  The  same 
confession  Thoreau  makes  in  his  verse : 

"  Listening  behind  me  for  my  wit." 

And  we  all  had  the  same  experience  in  the 
days  of  the  Great  Awakening ;  we  thought  we 
overheard  things  in  nature  and  in  ourselves. 

A  man  who  had  such  faith  in  humanity  must 
have  acquired  it  by  finding  in  himself  a  quick 
perception  of  the  best  in  others.  He  had  learned 
it  negatively  also  by  observing  on  what  a  low 
plane  men  address  each  other,  especially  in 
religion  and  morals,  referring  everything  to 
sources  and  supports  outside  of  themselves. 
He  taught  self-reliance  and  led  the  way.  He 
believed  in  the  guidance  of  the  intuitions,  and 
that  errors  and  inconsistencies  which  might  be 
sometimes  the  consequence  of  this  belief  were 
from  the  very  nature  of  their  origin  self-correc- 
tive. It  was  Burns's  paradox  — 
124 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

"  the  light  that  led  astray 
Was  light  from  heaven." 

If  Emerson,  too,  never  falters  in  his  good 
hopes  for  sinners,  how  much  more  confidence 
must  he  have  in  the  honest,  self-reliant  search 
for  the  right  way.  Moreover,  whatever  way- 
ward, irregular  and  contradictory  lines  might 
mark  the  track  of  man  through  life,  he  believed 
they  were  rounded  in  by  a  circle  whose  center 
was  love,  never  forfeited,  and  whose  circumfer- 
ence was  law,  all-restraining. 

I  gather  from  Emerson  that  the  chief  means 
to  intuitions  is  right  living ;  keep  the  senses  clear 
and  unperverted ;  see  with  your  own  eyes,  hear 
with  your  own  ears.  Man  is  an  imitative  ani- 
mal commonly;  catch  him  if  you  can  when  he 
is  not  and  you  will  come  nearer  to  his  intrinsic 
nature.  Man  uses  a  vast  quantity  of  paint  and 
wears  many  garments  in  the  effort  to  unite  him- 
self to  his  kind.  We  learn  our  lessons  together; 
first  in  the  family,  then  at  school,  then  in 
125 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

society.  Try  to  pierce  through  all  this,  whose 
prime  object  is  to  do  what  has  been  done  and  to 
know  what  is  known,  and  wherein  it  is  fatal 
for  the  soul  to  rest.  Seek  to  advance  through 
this  elementary  state,  which  is  only  preparatory 
and  defensive,  like  the  cocoon,  but  in  which  the 
wings  never  can  expand.  Advance,  and  be  a 
person,  and  add  something  to  life.  If  there  be 
anywhere  another  person  he  can  help  you ;  even 
his  record  is  a  help.  What  the  poets  and  wise 
men  have  sung  and  pictured,  that  be.  Do  not 
let  ideals  rest  in  the  realms  of  fancy.  Ideals  are 
the  prophetic  shadows  of  the  real,  or  the  hal- 
lowed memories  of  what  has  been,  of  what  may 
be  again  if  believed  in  and  aspired  after.  The 
thing  you  think  of,  dream  of  and  never  give  up 
will  come  to  pass,  because  it  is  not  yourself 
alone  that  desires  and  believes;  it  is  a  great 
moving  stream  that  has  caught  you  in  its  cur- 
rents and  bears  upon  its  bosom  the  gifts  you 
seek. 

126 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

Emerson  states  in  many  forms  the  ideal  and 
spiritual  laws  of  life.  Like  a  wise  doctor,  he 
has  left  us  many  directions  on  lesser  matters ; 
how  to  come  into  true  insights,  how  to  employ 
them,  how  to  preserve  them,  and  how  to  recog- 
nise them  in  others.  On  this  latter  point  he  is 
very  full  and  emphatic.  The  benefit  of  human 
intercourse  is  in  the  desire  and  effort  to  listen 
for  the  higher  voice  in  men ;  if  possible  to  draw 
it  out,  to  challenge  it,  to  show  it  courtesy 
and  honor;  "to  converse  and  to  know,"  as 
Plato  said.  Emerson's  voice  at  first  was  solitary 
and  remote,  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wil- 
derness. His  first  essay,  the  little  volume  en- 
titled Nature,  although  in  prose,  is  pure  poetry, 
and  is  as  unlike  the  literature  of  the  time  as  the 
Vedas.  At  length  having  attained  to  speak  the 
thoughts  of  his  more  thoughtful  contemporaries, 
he  received  from  them  many  additions  and  illus- 
trations which  wonderfully  enlarged  the  circle 
of  his  vision. 

127 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

I  have  in  previous  pages  described  his  per- 
sonal manner  toward  a  guest  or  friend  as  that  of 
expectation.  It  was  very  provocative.  Rarely 
before  had  one  been  so  encouraged  to  speak  his 
inmost  thought ;  rather  the  effect  of  human  in- 
tercourse had  been  to  silence  it  and  substitute 
what  other  men  were  thinking.  My  compan- 
ions and  myself  felt  that  our  education  thus  far 
was  mere  absorption  of  lifeless  knowledge. 
The  fruit  of  Emerson's  receptive  attitude  toward 
his  contemporaries,  and  I  may  say,  toward  all 
the  intellectual  legacies  of  the  past  appears  in 
the  Essays.  They  are  rich  in  wisdom,  old  as 
time ;  enriched  and  refreshened  with  contribu- 
tions such  as  every  new  age  furnishes,  over- 
looked by  the  serene  and  penetrating  eye  of 
genius. 

It  is  not  easy  to  draw  lines  through  the  Es- 
says, or  to  classify  his  ideas.  Emerson's  mind 
was  excursive;  and  if  there  be  one  definition 
more  than  another  that  fits  the  vague  title  of 
128 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

essay,  it  is  perhaps  excursive.     As  Lowell  said 
of  Theodore  Parker's  sermons  — 

"  His  hearers  can't  tell  you  Sunday  beforehand 
If  in  that  day's  discourse  you'll  be  Bibled  or  Koraned," 

so  in  the  Essays  of  Emerson  .you  are  not  sure 
what  ideas  you  will  meet  under  the  titles  of 
History,  Self -Reliance,  Wealth,  Circles,  etc. 
It  is  one  of  their  charms,  the  surprises.  I  sup- 
pose the  professors  of  English  would  not  teach 
their  pupils  to  write  in  that  manner.  They 
would  instruct  them  to  cogitate  connections  and 
logical  order.  Emerson's  page  is  often  oracular 
and  epigrammatic.  The  wisdom  of  the  ancients 
as  it  has  come  down  to  us  seems  fragmentary, 
as  if  something  had  dropped  out ;  in  Emerson 
it  appears  voluntarily  left  out.  But  what  can  be 
said  after  an  epigram?  Nothing  but  another 
epigram.  Anything  else  seems  tame  and  dull. 
You  are  lifted  up,  and  then  you  fall.  Oh,  for  a 
glimpse  of  those  links  which  mankind  persists 
in  believing  make  a  chain.  Emerson  wrote 
129 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

from  the  imagination,  from  remembered  gleams 
and  visits  of  a  spiritual  vision;  and  it  is  said 
largely  from  note  books  containing  miscellane- 
ous thoughts.  To  give  form  to  these,  to  make 
an  integral  structure  was  not  possible  without  a 
constructive  faculty.  There  is  a  place  for  every- 
thing in  a  drama,  an  epic  or  novel.  A  construc- 
tive mind  resolves  its  materials.  Emerson  got 
together  vast  collections,  singly  beautiful  and 
valuable;  and  some  he  happily  wrought  into 
fair  and  perfect  forms.  The  remainder  he  gen- 
erously left  for  us  to  assort  as  we  could. 

It  is  well  known  how  Goethe's  collections 
overflowed,  beyond  his  creative  power;  how  he 
built  a  roof  over  some  —  a  mere  shed  for  stor- 
age ;  and  others  he  thrust  into  various  previously 
completed  houses,  all  for  temporary  convenience 
and  lodgment.  Emerson  appears  to  me  some- 
times like  a  rich  family  with  magnificent  furni- 
ture, but  with  no  house  in  which  to  display  it. 
He  was  apt  to  move  it  about  from  one  place  to 
130 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

another,  from  one  lecture  to  another,  then  into 
the  essay;  and  some  precious  pieces  he  left 
standing  alone,  like  statues,  with  only  the  light 
of  heaven  for  their  protection,  wonderful  sen- 
tences, quite  self -substantial,  yet  how  much 
more  impressive  in  some  noble  temple.  I  have 
often  wished  that  Emerson  had  left  off  preach- 
ing and  had  created  a  work  of  art  that  would 
have  itself  preached.  In  reading  him  I  cannot 
admire  variously  enough ;  there  is  not  sufficient 
opportunity  for  beholding  beauty,  form,  pro- 
portion in  the  organisation  of  his  materials. 
They  are  too  abstract,  too  absolute.  We  long  for 
some  embracing,  concrete  form ;  for  embodi- 
ment, for  incarnation,  so  that  through  his  mouth 
should  have  spoken  a  hundred  men  and  women. 
Am  I  asking  for  a  mine  when  I  already  have 
more  jewels  than  I  can  wear  ?  Yes,  it  is  true ; 
it  is  true  that  when  we  find  greatness  in  a  man 
it  creates  an  appetite  for  the  greater. 

There  are  certain  of  Emerson's  earlier  Essays 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

which  when  I  read  I  feel  myself  an  auditor  in  a 
vast  temple,  with  one  voice  resounding,  distant 
and  solemn,  and  calling  upon  me  to  be  a  god. 
Or,  it  is  as  if  in  Hamlet  or  Prometheus  none  but 
Hamlet  and  Prometheus  should  speak.  The 
splendid  sentences  exhilarate  and  fill  me  with  a 
dazzling  sense  of  -my  own  possibilities.  I  read 
one  and  a  second,  and  at  the  third  I  am  intoxi- 
cated and  pack  my  trunk  at  once  for  Utopia. 
Emerson  mingles  no  water  in  his  wine.  His 
great  soul  never  condescended  to  qualify,  to 
concede,  to  write  down.  It  is  difficult  to  maintain 
the  elevation  so  easy  to  attain  while  reading 
Emerson's  page.  The  moment  we  leave  it 
there  is  danger  of  a  tumble.  Therefore  a  wise 
and  moderate  morsel  at  one  time  is  best.  Like 
our  prayers,  we  should  come  to  it  in  the  right 
mood;  then  there  will  be  a  response  of  more 
lasting  effect. 

The  study  of  the  Essays  is  an  excellent  prepa- 
ration for  reading  the  masterpieces  of  all  litera- 
132 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

tures.  He  opens  the  mind  to  them,  and  prepares 
it  for  greatness  of  every  kind.  In  particular  his 
admiration  of  the  noble  actions  of  men,  whether 
real  or  those  imagined  by  poets  and  dramatists, 
is  inspiring  and  contagious.  He  was  the  liter- 
ary as  well  as  spiritual  magician  of  his  time. 
He  had  a  sure  scent  for  the  excellent  in  every 
department  of  man's  activities;  in  biographies, 
in  wars,  in  science,  in  poetry.  The  mere 
enumeration  of  the  names  of  great  men  and  of 
heroic  deeds  is  to  us  when  young  very  enkin- 
dling ;  and  Emerson  was  fond  of  repeating  long 
lists  of  these  in  an  allusive  and  attractive  way. 
In  fact,  it  was  rather  the  fashion  among  the 
original  Transcendentalists.  It  was  the  same  in 
regard  to  all  famous  books.  I  suppose  there  is 
no  studious  reader  whose  first  impulse  on  hear- 
ing of  one  is  not  to  procure  and  read  it  immedi- 
ately ;  and  we  must  credit  Emerson  with  promot- 
ing the  taste  for  the  best  literature  and  improv- 
ing the  whole  literary  tone  of  the  country. 
133 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

This,  however,  was  only  a  minor  and  incidental 
effect  of  his  writing ;  but  it  served  to  keep  the 
somewhat  sublimated  thought  and  spiritual  air 
of  the  time  from  becoming  unhealthy  and  nar- 
row. 

It  seems  sometimes  as  though  Emerson  in 
the  Essays  had  set  out  to  distil  the  essence  of 
libraries  into  a  page ;  pages  into  a  sentence ; 
the  sentence  into  a  phrase,  the  phrase  to  a 
word.  This  design,  this  intellectual  habit  is 
the  very  opposite  of  the  creative  and  constructive 
mind.  Perhaps  some  sentences  from  Joubert, 
a  French  writer  of  Penstes,  whose  name  belongs 
in  a  literary  classification  with  those  of  La 
Rochefoucauld,  La  Bruyere  and  Vauvenargues, 
will  best  describe  one  feature  of  Emerson  as  a 
writer.  These  sentences  are  from  a  chapter 
entitled  by  Joubert,  "  The  author  painted  by 
himself." 

"  It  is  my  province  to  sow,  but  not  to  build 
or  found. ' ' 

134 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

"  I  am  like  an  Aeolian  harp  that  gives  out 
certain  fine  tones  but  executes  no  air. ' ' 

"  It  will  be  said  that  I  speak  with  sublety. 
This  is  sometimes  the  sole  means  of  penetrating 
that  the  intellect  has  in  its  power ;  and  this  may 
arise  from  the  nature  of  the  truth  to  which  it 
would  attain,  or  from  that  of  the  opinions,  or  of 
the  ignorance  through  which  it  is  reduced  pain- 
fully to  open  for  itself  a  way." 

"  It  is  not  my  periods  that  I  polish  but  my 
ideas.  I  pause  until  the  drop  of  light  of  which 
I  stand  in  need  is  formed  and  falls  from  my 
pen." 

This  last  expression  seems  to  define  not  only 
Emerson's  literary  habit  but  also  his  waiting 
upon  the  moment  of  inspiration.  His  will  was 
exercised  in  the  work  of  preparing  himself  for 
this  moment,  in  making  his  windows  clear  and 
leaving  open  his  doors.  His  attitude  toward 
his  own  mind  and  perceptions  was  distinctly 
religious.  "  Our  thought  is  a  pious  reception," 
135 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

lie  says.  The  god  of  thought,  the  Muse,  will 
enter  if  you  are  not  too  impatient,  if  you  will 
not  stand  in  your  own  light,  if  you  do  not  wrap 
yourself  in  creeds  and  customs.  "  Ideas  come 
when  it  pleases  them,  not  when  it  pleases  me," 
said  Rousseau.  Emerson  taught  this  as  literary 
ethics,  and  the  Essays  are  an  example  of  the 
fruits  of  its  practice.  He  listened  for  the  still 
small  voice,  supposed  hitherto  to  speak  only  in 
Hebrew  and  Greek  and  from  Asia.  He  an- 
nounced that  it  could  be  heard  in  America  and 
today,  and  that  it  now  spoke  English.  Its  chief 
difficulty  for  us  is  that  it  continues  to  be  small 
and  still,  while  we  want  the  large  and  explosive. 
I  have  said  that  Emerson  constantly  incul- 
cates right  living  as  the  means  to  intellectual 
and  spiritual  insights.  Perhaps  one-half  of  the 
Essays  concerns  the  statement  of  what  form  his 
highest  ideals  of  life ;  and  the  other  half  of  the 
conduct  necessary  to  realise  them.  In  the  latter 
he  descends  to  many  particulars,  and  shows  that 
136 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

common  sense  and  shrewd,  homely  wisdom  for 
which  he  has  been  much  praised.  It  made  some 
of  his  later  Essays  almost  popular.  They  were 
even  commended  in  Boston  and  New  York,  and 
by  such  reputable  citizens  as  Messrs.  Hard  and 
Long  Head.  "  Our  daughters,  sir,  have  under- 
stood you  for  a  long  time  back;  but  we  have 
never  paid  much  attention  until  lately ;  now  we 
begin  to  find  you  comprehensible ;  a  good  Yan- 
kee, too,  and  we  hear  you  are  a  man  of  some 
property  and  of  a  first-rate  family."  True,  we 
are  never  allowed  to  forget  that  Emerson  was 
descended  from  seven  New  England  ministers, 
while  the  remnant  of  us  and  our  ancestors  kept 
shop  or  raised  corn ;  yet  such  was  the  force  and 
circumstance  of  New  England  blood  that  how- 
ever ethereal  it  became  it  was  never  quite  alien- 
ated from  the  counter  and  the  farm,  or  how- 
ever earthy  yet  it  had  its  transcendental  moods. 
And  what  pleases  the  heart  of  the  bourgeois 
most  is  that  Emerson  took  care  of  his  property 
137 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

and  increased  it.  He  was  no  crazy  poet  or  re- 
former, living  in  the  woods  or  an  attic,  or  worse, 
upon  his  friends.  One  is  allowed  to  preach  al- 
most any  kind  of  destructive  or  lofty  notions  in 
New  England,  provided  he  do  it  behind  a  re- 
spectable life,  a  house,  a  lineage,  a  black  coat 
and  bank  stock. 

But  let  us  see  what  were  Emerson's  maxims, 
to  be  gathered  from  the  Essays,  for  the  life 
requisite  to  procure  intellectual  light  and  the 
power  to  communicate  it  to  other  men.  Respect 
the  senses,  the  avenues  of  much  knowledge ; 
there  is  an  inevitable  contest  whether  the  body 
shall- possess  the  soul,  or  the  soul  the  body;  man 
must  know  and  command  the  inclinations  of 
each.  Live  with  nature  as  much  as  possible ;  it 
corrects  the  social  life.  Follow  your  instincts. 
Write  '  whim  '  over  your  lintel,  to  humor  the 
world ;  but  do  not  believe  it  to  be  such  yourself. 
Do  not  conform,  nor  make  laborious  effort  to 
be  consistent ;  expect  to  be  misunderstood  for 
138 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

awhile.  "  Break  up  the  tiresome  old  heavens  " 
—  here  I  quote  one  of  his  best  quotations  —  which 
expresses  the  effort  of  every  master  and  the  un- 
spoken heart  of  youth.  Eat,  drink  temperately ; 
use  indulgences  and  luxuries  moderately ;  taste 
the  cup,  do  not  drain  it;  smoke  half  a  cigar. 
One  end  of  it  is  stimulating  and  social,  the  other 
is  narcotic  and  silencing.  Gratify,  but  not  like 
the  beasts,  your  special  appetites  and  inclina- 
tions—  even  pie  was  made  to  be  eaten.  "  Let 
the  divine  part  be  upward,  and  the  region  of  the 
beast  below."  You  cannot  always  drive  out  the 
devil  at  will  and  at  once ;  but  make  no  bargains 
with  him.  Do  not  argue,  but  affirm ;  the  argu- 
ment may  be  sound  but  the  higher  reason  is 
sounder.  Sleep  much ;  we  are  born  again  in 
solid  sleep,  and  dreams  teach  us  something. 
Use  the  morning  hour.  Prize  the  transient 
illuminations  of  your  own  mind,  and  ' '  thoughts 
of  things  which  thoughts  but  tenderly  touch." 
Do  not  be  ambitious  of  gain  or  place.  Love  the 
139 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

spot  where  you  are,  and  the  friends  God  has 
given,  and  be  sure  to  expect  everything  good  of 
them.  Keep  the  mind  open  and  the  heart  sin- 
cere. These  things  do  and  you  may  wait  hope- 
fully for  the  god  of  intuitions  in  yourself,  and 
hear  him  more  clearly  in  your  fellow  beings. 
For  intuition  is  not  that  narrow  doctrine  of 
hearing  only  what  God  says  to  you,  but  the  pres- 
ence of  God  when  he  communicates  himself 
through  any  human  being. 

The  daemon  in  man,  as  described  by  Emerson, 
is  a  more  active,  energising  and  versatile  spirit 
than  that  of  Socrates,  which  was  only  restrain- 
ing. Emerson's  is  the  last  fruit  of  the  spirit  of 
Christianity  and  the  general  wisdom  of  ancient 
and  modern  ages,  affirming  that  there  is  some- 
thing divine  and  immortal  in  man,  and  that  it 
has  a  voice  both  corrective  and  suggestive,  heard 
not  once  for  all,  or  mediately,  but  always  and 
by  each  person  for  himself.  He  is  the  only 
ancient  or  modern  writer  who  continuously  and 
140 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

with  emphasis  has  taught  this  doctrine  without 
attaching  to  it  some  article  of  external  faith,  or 
building  upon  it  a  system  of  formal  philosophy. 
His  contribution  to  our  faith,  the  enlargement 
and  purifying  of  it,  is  in  the  direction  of  ethics ; 
and  to  philosophy  in  the  observation  of  the 
working  of  his  own  mind. 

The  question  often  recurs  whether  what  Emer- 
son observed  in  himself  and  delivered  with  such 
confidence  is  true  for  all  men.  Time  will  sift 
and  discriminate  his  work.  Happily  there  are 
ever  those  who  anticipate  the  verdict  of  time. 
His  manner  was  oracular,  and  he  affirmed  more 
than  he  denied.  Idealist  and  optimist  as  he 
was,  his  affirmations  are  in  their  nature  incom- 
plete ;  but  they  are  dearest  to  the  heart  of  man, 
the  best  guide,  the  end  toward  which  we  strive, 
Good  and  Beauty.  Keep  the  eye  fixed  upon 
them  and  we  grow  into  their  likeness.  His 
highest  act  of  faith  was  in  believing  that  evil 
had  no  real  existence.  In  evolution  the  strong- 
141 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

est  survive ;  in  morals  the  best ;  in  beauty  the 
most  beautiful.  Culture  is  the  means  to  this 
end  in  the  individual.  Consoling  doctrine, 
but  requiring  an  almost  godlike  repose  and 
elevation. 

The  Essay  is  not  one  of  the  grand  forms  of 
literature ;  the  content  is  all  that  can  give  to  it 
value  or  beauty.  It  is  a  plain  roof,  covering,  it 
may  be,  emptiness  or  magnificent  properties. 
Its  brevity  is  convenient.  It  is  a  way  of  deliver- 
ing yourself  when  you  do  not  know  what  else  to 
do  with  what  you  have ;  or  possess  no  gift  for 
invention  or  construction.  In  the  essay  you  ex- 
periment; you  fish  in  any  water.  Montaigne's 
net  took  in  everything;  Bacon's,  only  the  larger 
game,  suitable  to  set  before  princes  and  men  of 
affairs.  Emerson's  style  is  like  Bacon's  in  some 
respects;  yet  not  so  colorless  and  strained  of 
personality ;  while  on  the  other  hand  he  is  not 
so  whimsical  and  not  so  discursive  as  Montaigne. 
In  the  essay  you  see  what  can  be  said,  not  what 
142 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

must  be  said  in  order  that  a  final  and  prepared 
effect  may  be  produced,  as  in  the  drama  and 
novel.  You  draw  around  the  topic  from  many 
sources  things  associated  in  your  own  mind,  not 
in  the  general  mind  and  expectation.  Embel- 
lishment and  illustration  are  supplied  by  miscel- 
laneous reading ;  but  most  of  all  it  is  a  receptacle 
for  those  scattered  observations  of  life,  nature 
and  experience  which  want  a  thread  and  would 
be  lost  if  left  singly  and  unset.  Pins  and  nee- 
dles go  to  waste  without  a  cushion.  Prepare  a 
place  for  things  and  things  find  it.  Good  writ- 
ers like  good  housekeepers  can  at  length  find  a 
use  for  everything,  and  do  save  all. 

In  the  Essays,  Emerson  rarely  writes  on  a 
temporary  theme.  One  looks  in  vain  to  fix 
upon  some  points  of  departure  and  arrival,  some 
immaturity  and  maturity,  some  youth  and  age, 
some  greenness  and  ripening  in  his  genius  and 
productions.  If  these  were  in  the  man  they  do 
not  appear  in  his  work.  He  has  no  youthful 
143 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

manner ;  he  began  with  the  style  and  almost  the 
grasp  which  he  retained  throughout.  He  began 
with  great  and  well-worn  subjects;  he  began 
with  conciseness,  with  an  imaginative  treat- 
ment, with  a  style  not  formed  on  models  or  by 
practice;  but  it  seems  like  the  transcript  of  a 
mind  already  long  accustomed  to  a  certain  in- 
ward and  silent  expression  of  itself.  This  is 
why  we  feel  it  so  near  to  our  own  experience ;  it 
seems  written  out  of  the  same.  When  he  began 
to  write  and  publish  he  left  behind  him  the  steps 
by  which  he  had  gained  his  position.  As  far  as 
his  message  had  importance,  his  style  any 
charm,  or  his  personality  impressiveness,  they 
were  the  same  at  first  as  at  last.  It  is  vain  to 
complain  of  want  of  completeness,  want  of 
logic  and  connection;  he  is  what  he  is.  We 
cannot  say  these  are  matters  of  indifference ; 
but  we  can  say  that  a  man  must  observe  them 
no  longer  than  they  help  him;  and  that  the 
greatest  minds  are  superior  to  them,  violate 
144 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

precedents  and  authorities  and  create  the  rules 
by  which  they  are  to  be  read.  "  When  what  you 
read  elevates  your  mind  and  fills  you  with  noble 
aspirations,  look  for  no  other  rule  by  which  to 
judge  the  book ;  it  is  good  and  is  the  work  of  a 
master-hand." 

A  few  sentences  of  unclassical  Greek  have 
moved  and  filled  the  world  for  eighteen  centu- 
ries. Many  of  the  favorite  passages  of  literature 
will  hardly  bear  analysis,  and  none  are  more 
easily  burlesqued.  Emerson  was  a  careful  com- 
poser ;  but  it  would  appear  that  it  extended  not 
much  further  than  sentences;  to  make  them 
short,  and  then  make  another.  And  so  he  adds 
thought  to  thought  on  the  page.  Their  con- 
nection it  has  been  wittily  said,  is  to  be  found  in 
God  —  what  better  place !  In  the  lecture-room 
he  paid  his  audiences  the  compliment  of  appear- 
ing to  think  before  them.  Old  Sojourner  Truth 
once  said  to  an  anti-slavery  convention  before 
which  she  arose  to  speak,  "  You  have  come  here 
145 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

to  hear  what  I  am  going  to  say;  and  I  have 
come  here  for  the  same  purpose."  This  was 
something  the  same  feeling  one  had  when 
Emerson  arose,  hesitated,  seemed  to  be  totally 
unprepared,  to  be  fumbling  for  the  right  thing 
to  say.  Was  this  nature  or  art?  It  certainly 
was  very  exciting  to  a  sympathetic  audience  and 
doubled  the  effect  of  his  master  strokes.  These 
always  announced  themselves  beforehand.  It 
was  like  the  flash  of  a  cannon ;  it  was  seen  be- 
fore it  was  heard. 

In  the  Essays,  a  certain  fine  and  noble  spirit 
colors  all  that  is  there  written.  I  have  often 
felt  it  to  be  like  the  tone  of  his  voice  in  the 
lecture-room,  which  commended  everything  it 
delivered.  Whatever  passages  or  verse  of  other 
writers  he  introduced  seemed  more  beautiful 
than  in  their  own  place.  As  was  said  of  the 
Rev.  J.  S.  Buckminster,  a  former  famous  Bos- 
ton clergyman,  when  it  was  his  turn  to  read  the 
contributions  of  a  certain  literary  club  of  that 
146 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

city  — ' '  when   Buckminster  reads   all  the  com- 
positions are  good." 

Emerson  was  a  scholar  in  the  general  sense  of 
that  title,  although  he  made  no  additions  to  any 
special  department.  But  he  upheld  the  scholar's 
vocation,  and  celebrated  it  much  in  prose  and 
verse.  His  appreciation  of  the  studies  of  other 
men  in  all  fields  of  knowledge  was  generous  and 
quick.  In  the  form  in  which  he  chose  to  ex- 
press himself,  the  essay,  it  was  easy  and  fitting 
to  embody  by  illustration  and  reference  the 
results  of  the  labors  of  others,  and  to  take  up 
the  interesting  fragments  of  special  studies.  He 
detected  these,  the  universal  element  in  particu- 
lar discoveries,  the  gems  of  wisdom  and  wit,  by 
an  infallible  instinct.  His  mind  held  an  anti- 
dote to  specialism,  and  yet  was  its  best  exponent. 
His  prophetic  imagination  was  coincident  with 
some  of  the  experimental  revelations  of  modern 
science.  The  higher  regions  of  science  depend 
upon  imagination  as  much  as  poetry  and  art 
147 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

depend  upon  it.  Every  law  must  be  felt  before 
it  is  arrived  at  by  the  understanding  and  evi- 
dence; that  is  its  necessity.  But  undoubtedly 
you  must  be  looking  intently  in  its  direction. 

Morals  would  be  as  appropriate  a  title  for 
Emerson's  Essays  as  for  Plutarch's;  the  actual 
contents  covered  by  it  being  similar,  the  search 
for  the  beautiful  and  the  good.  The  title  is 
only  a  little  more  loose  and  vague  than  the  mat- 
ter. The  essay  shows  a  man's  reading  it  is  said ; 
but  in  what  the  essayist  appropriates  there  is 
revealed  the  same  characteristic  as  in  that 
which  is  original.  What  he  quotes  is  the  same 
as  what  he  invents.  "  Let  them  perish  who 
have  said  the  same  things  before."  The  points 
of  light  are  refocused  and  sent  forward  again. 

There  is  room  in  essay  writing  to  say  what 
comes  into  the  head ;  but  then  there  must  be  a 
head.  Emerson  read  more  than  he  studied,  and 
thought  more  than  he  wrote,  so  that  there  is 
great  compression  and  conciseness  in  the  Essays. 
148 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

They  are  convenient  to  quote.  I  frequently  see 
in  the  newspapers  his  phrases  and  even  whole 
sentences  uncredited.  Thus  always  language 
and  literature  are  fed  involuntarily  from  higher 
springs. 

As  on  the  platform  Emerson  seemed  often 
to  be  searching  for  the  right  word  or  idea, 
almost  admitting  the  hearer  to  his  mental 
processes,  so  on  the  page  of  the  Essay  there  is 
revealed  the  active  principle  of  thought.  He 
appears  to  leave  out  so  much  that  he  flatters 
us  with  the  feeling  that  he  is  merely  making 
memoranda  for  us  to  complete.  He  touched, 
but  did  not  stay,  on  a  thousand  subjects ;  but  he 
left  them  illuminated ;  there  are  diamond-like 
gleams  on  the  pages,  concentrations  of  wit  and 
wisdom,  something  for  all  moods  and  experi- 
ences. 

I  think  the  obscurities,  or  what  some  complain 
of  as  a  want  of  cohesion  and  logical  sequence  in 
Emerson's  Essays  may  be  partly  explained  as 
149 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

an  impatience  of  the  commonplace,  of  the 
smooth,  facile  style  which  turns  itself  round  and 
round  a  subject,  lingering  over  an  idea  until  it 
is  so  comminuted  that  its  force  is  lost.  It  covers 
the  page,  it  does  not  fill  it.  There  is  no  for- 
ward movement ;  it  begins  but  does  not  arrive. 
There  are  long  pauses  between  Emerson's  sen- 
tences. Their  brilliance,  their  power  and  sug- 
gestion are  often  in  these  intervals.  Ordinary 
punctuation  is  inadequate  for  their  indication. 
Stop,  reader,  and  think;  reflect  as  he  is  doing; 
let  not  the  stimulated  imagination  be  embar- 
rassed by  the  want  of  logic ;  let  it  leap  this  bar- 
rier and  know  that  the  relations  of  things  can 
often  be  more  truly  seen  in  the  mind's  illumina- 
tion than  in  that  of  rhetorical  order.  Emerson 
does  not  weary  you  with  all  that  can  be  said  in 
the  spaces  between  his  texts;  but  after  long 
thinking  he  writes  another  text  —  another  bead 
on  the  string  which  when  full  will  be  hidden. 
Should  it  break  or  seem  weak,  no  matter;  the 
150 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

beads  are  the  value,  not  the  string.  The  verses 
of  the  Bible  are  as  good  out  of  it  as  in  it.  The 
brightest  gems  of  all  literatures  are  some  oft- 
quoted  sentences,  lines,  fragments  of  an  enor- 
mous mass  of  material  put  together  in  structures 
that  have  nothing  else  save  these  to  preserve 
them. 

In  his  way  Emerson  was  a  writer  very  careful 
about  form  and  style.  I  have  heard  that  when 
he  turned  a  lecture  into  an  essay,  or  prepared 
any  piece  of  writing  for  publication,  he  called 
it  giving  it  a  Greek  dress.  It  is  Greek,  but 
seldom  of  Athens;  it  is  Spartan,  Laconian.  As 
Sparta  only  permitted  poetry  in  war  songs,  so 
Emerson's  is  strictly  confined  to  the  moral.  He 
knew  that  it  was  not  enough  to  have  good 
thoughts;  that  the  gods  must  not  be  without 
suitable  temples.  He  was  conscious,  like  Plato, 
that  writing  is  the  grave  of  thought ;  that  in  the 
attempt  at  expression  it  becomes  sometimes 
altogether  illusive,  flat  and  nothing;  while 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

before  the  pen  is  taken  in  hand  it  allures  us 
with  the  most  beautiful  hopes.6  Let  us  then  put 
thought  to  the  test;  and  what  by  ever  intend- 
ing, repeated  effort  will  not  take  perfect  form, 
let  us  reject.  Emerson  observed  these  prin- 
ciples of  literary  art,  not  in  grand  forms  but  in 
the  polish  and  elaboration  of  the  separate  parts. 
The  Essays  contain  the  harvests  of  Emerson's 
lifetime;  plain  food  for  daily  life,  rare  fruit  and 
dainties  for  life's  holidays.  The  quality  is  as  the 
products  of  the  sun's  light  and  warmth;  the 
form  is  spontaneous  and  simple,  and  everywhere 
expressive  of  the  man.  He  wrote  when  he  felt 
inspired ;  when  not,  he  sought  in  right  living  and 
high  thinking  the  renewal  of  the  sources  of 
inspiration. 

6  In  a  letter  to  Sterling,  Emerson  wrote,  ' '  All  thoughts  are 
holy  when  they  come  floating  up  to  us  in  magical  newness 
from  the  hidden  life,  and  'tis  no  wonder  we  are  enamored 
and  love-sick  with  these  until  in  our  devotion  to  particular 
beauties  and  in  our  efforts  at  artificial  disposition  we  lose 
somewhat  of  our  universal  sense  and  the  sovereign  eye  of 
Proportion. ' ' 

152 


Emerson  as  Essayist 

their  most  notable  and  instructive  characteristics. 
He  sees  more- than  he  says.  He  is  like  a  general 
overlooking  the  field  of  battle,  determining  the 
strategical  points  and  concentrating  his  forces 
upon  them.  "What  he  does  not  heed  is  not  im- 
portant for  a  comprehension  and  complete  grasp 
of  the  situation.  Some  have  complained  that 
one  might  read  the  Essays  as  well  backward  as 
forward  and  with  equal  profit  and  understand- 
ing. Then  read  them  so,  I  advise.  Either  way 
it  is  impossible  to  miss  their  message.  The 
reserves  of  Emerson  are  a  tribute  to  the  reader. 
He  does  not  put  him  to  sleep  with  faultless  but 
empty  periods.  He  stirs  him  with  sallies  of 
thought  or  wit  or  expression.  An  index  to  his 
writings  would  probably  fill  as  many  volumes  as 
the  writings  themselves.  He  has  some  good 
thought  in  terse  and  memorable  phrase  on  every 
subject  that  interests  humanity.  The  connec- 
tion may  not  be  with  each  other ;  look  out  for  it 
153 


Remembrances  of  Emerson 

in  your  own  thinking.  The  stars  shine  far  apart 
nor  otherwise  would  their  shining  be  so  appar- 
ent and  impressive ;  yet  who  can  doubt  the  in- 
terstellar spaces  are  also  full  of  light  and  beauty  ? 
So  Emerson's  sentences  often  rise  on  our  skies, 
sometimes  cold  and  glittering,  sometimes  warm 
and  palpitating,  yet  always  reminders  of  the 
infinite  worlds  beyond  them,  the  worlds  where 
the  souls  of  men  are  one  with  the  spirit  of  truth, 
of  beauty  and  holiness. 


IBRAF 


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